It was the scare campaign of the week. Treasurer Jim Chalmers suggested a few superannuation tweaks might be in order and the backlash in corporate media was savage. What’s the scam?
The scam is the media has turned a “review” into a “raid”. Super was intended to provide retirement incomes for all but it has become a super tax shelter which allows wealthy families to pass on their publicly subsidised superannuation balances to future generations.
That didn’t stop the shrill AFR from claiming a calamitous Labor “raid on super”. Labor is coming after your “family nest egg”, wailed Murdoch town crier Paul Kelly today. The “risks are extreme”. His newspaper, dishonestly, has rolled out John Howard and made it all about “Middle Australia”.
Chalmers had merely started a discussion on the purpose of super and suggested tax caps for rich might be in order because super was about providing retirement income, not tax breaks for the rich. MWM revealed early last year that super tax breaks were now almost as large as the aged pension itself. Fact is that the majority of super subsidies are skewed towards the very wealthy. They need to be capped. It’s simple maths.
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.