Revenue Minister Peter Dutton has dismissed Opposition leader Kim Beazley’s proposed changes to the workings of Australia’s superannuation regime, on the grounds of being inefficient and too expensive to administer.
Beazley has put forward a proposal for a single superannuation clearing house to be managed by the Australian Taxation Office to end the current system’s “paperwork nightmare” for small businesses.
“What will this massive new bureaucracy cost and how will it be paid for?” Dutton asked.
Included in Beazley’s proposal is a five-point plan that claims to reward small businesses with a $200 business skills credit for all new small businesses, the superannuation clearing house, a red tape reduction fund, the ensuring of prompt bill paying by corporate debtors and cheaper phone calls with greater IT access.
The superannuation clearing house will be optional for small businesses and will allow them to make superannuation guarantee Levy payments to the one organisation, which an employee would then have to contact in order to nominate a super fund.
Labor said this would free up small businesses from filling out time-consuming paperwork, while driving the next wave of productivity in the Australian economy.
But Dutton argued this could lead to an increase in lost superannuation and at the same time decrease workers’ rights.
“Just as workers have the right to decide where their pay is banked, so too do they have a right to decide where their superannuation is invested,” he said.
“By adding this new bureaucratic arrangement, Labor is trying once again to thwart workers’ rights to manage their own money.
“Labor’s clearing house will also wipe out the many private sector companies that are already providing this service to small businesses across the nation.”
