So, it’s a bit of mystery why the Liberal Party, in dire need of wooing back women voters in particular, has decided to oppose the changes. It suggests the Liberal Party won’t have much to meaningfully contribute to the serious tax reform debate Treasurer Jim Chalmers foreshadowed in his National Press Club speech.

Australia Institute research shows that twice as many Australians support (52 per cent) the government’s super tax concessions changes as oppose them (26 per cent), with around a quarter still undecided. The polling also found that about one in five of those surveyed thought it would impact their retirement plans when in reality, only one in 200 will be affected.

Perhaps people overestimate how much this will impact them because most people don’t think about their super at all until they get close to retirement, but let’s be clear, collecting more revenue from mostly wealthy men is good for both women and young people.

Only the very richest Australians will be affected by Labor’s plans to reduce the generosity of the superannuation tax concessions for people with earnings over $3 million.

Chalmers’ proposed changes will halve the super tax concession, meaning those will super balances over $3 million will go from paying 15 per cent tax to paying 30 per cent tax. It still represents an enormous tax concession for wealthy people, it’s just slightly less generous.

Do you have $3 million in super? Me neither. It is estimated that the changes will only impact a tiny fraction of the Australian population, around 80,000 people. That’s fewer people than can fit in the MCG. In fact, 99.5 per cent of Australians currently do not have more than $3 million in super.

According to ATO data, the average super balance is a mere $182,000 for men and $146,000 for women. Greg Jericho, chief economist at the Australia Institute, crunched the numbers and found that around 97 per cent of people currently in the labour force will never have $3 million in superannuation, no matter how hard they work for their entire lives.

Even if a young person works their entire life on the full-time average wage, with no time out of the workforce for kids or illness, they will never accumulate $3 million in super. Not surprising when you consider the median super balance for women aged 60-64 is less than $160,000, meaning half of Australian women have less super than that (half of Australian men the same age have just $211,996 or less).

This is because the superannuation system is designed to benefit those who work full-time on high incomes and take no time out of the workforce i.e. men. Women, who are more likely to be paid less and to take time out of the workforce to have children and to care for their elderly parents, tend to find that by the time they retire, the gender pay gap has become a gender pay chasm.

So, don’t believe the hyperbole that Labor’s popular super changes are bad for women, or “stealing the inheritance” of people’s children, or the dire warnings from millionaire businessmen that young people should be worried about these changes affecting them by the time they retire. It’s complete bull. Young people – most of whom can barely find a place to rent, let alone buy a home – need to be concerned about Labor’s super tax changes about as much as they need to worry about the cost of buying a yacht.

Politically, the polling shows Labor voters unsurprisingly support the changes, but independent voters are amongst the most supportive of the super tax reforms. This is the key constituency the Liberal party has lost over the past few elections. That the Liberal Party is choosing this policy hill to die on in opposition suggests the party has learned nothing from suffering back-to-back election bloodbaths.

Labor’s superannuation changes are good for women and young people. Hardly any Australians will ever be affected by this tax change, but most of us will benefit from the revenue raised by it.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers also announced he intends to dial up Labor’s ambitions for bold tax reforms in his National Press Club speech. The fact is, Australia is a low-tax nation. If Australia were to increase the level of revenue it collects from taxation to the OECD average, the Commonwealth would have had an extra $140 billion in revenue in 2023-24. Australia needs more revenue if we are going to pay for the schools and hospitals and infrastructure we need.

The fairness that distinguishes some of Labor’s tax reforms from previous Coalition governments reforms bodes well for upcoming tax reform debate, whether it’s reducing the generosity of super tax concessions for the wealthy, or redistributing $84 billion from high to low and middle-income earners as part of redesigning the stage three income tax cuts.

Chalmers warned that the media’s tendency to try to force politicians to rule various reforms in or out was “cancerous” to the debate, and he’s right. A sensible debate would put everything on the table before anything is ruled out. The Treasurer refused to close off options, even those he personally disagrees with such as increasing the GST.

But Chalmers also set some sensible ground rules for reforms, saying any changes should improve the budget or at least leave it broadly the same. Hopefully, that means a carbon tax will be amongst the reforms considered, or at the very least, how Australia can claw back some revenue from the extremely profitable gas export industry. It is an ongoing outrage that Australia collects more money from students paying HECS than it does from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.

Tax is good and a proper tax reform debate is well overdue. If Labor puts fairness at the heart of any tax reforms, as it has done with superannuation reforms and the stage three tax cuts, it will be on solid ground electorally and economically.