Keating on super

Paul Keating was in good form with Fran Kelly on Radio National this week.

He was pushing for a return to his prime ministerial push for increased minimum superannuation, and promoting cranking the compulsory superannuation to 12% from the current 9% over the next six years.
Unlike Tony Abbott's "Great Big Tax" on business to pay for paid parental leave, Keating says the super increases could be from forgone wages increases. in other words - at no cost to employers, and unlikely to be noticed increases for employees.

As a Federal Government employee, I can vouch for a long-neglected super account climbing fairly quickly with the APS's 15.45% super. So it's hard to knock the idea of locking in better super funds for everyone else.

Keating said it well he described the current (and former) government stance of deceasing the emphasis on super and increasing the emphasis on pensions as being like telling people to forget super - the pension will be there.

Surely we need to move away from the aged pension?

On the topic of super, Australia now has one of the largest superannuation investment pools anywhere in the world. The Australian Democrats used to have a policy favouring a minimum percentage of the total super funds to be invested in Australia, to drive investment, research and local employment development. It seemed like a good idea then, and with Australia shares performing strongly, it seems like an even better idea now.