You can say what you like about ns in the polling booth – but at least they are fair.
Case in point: prime ministers who break election promises are often distrusted by voters regardless of which major party they lead. Right or left, a broken promise is rarely forgiven.
Our current PM, Anthony Albanese, declared his Labor Party would not fiddle with superannuation policy, shortly before the May 2022 election.
‘We’ve said we have no intention of making any super changes – one of the things that we’re doing in this campaign is we’re making all of our policies clear,’ he told reporters.
Less than year after that declaration, Labor in government announced it wanted to double earning taxes to 30 per cent on superannuation balances above a $3million threshold.
Albanese has yet to secure parliamentary approval for the Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions bill, with the Greens wanting the threshold reduced to $1.9milllion.
An election must be held by May and any move by Labor to ram its hated superannuation bills through the Senate would be enough to turn voters off a first-term government defending a very slim majority.
Almost half, or 46 per cent, of voters distrust Labor because of its super tax plan, according to polling commissioned by the Financial Services Council.
Three-quarters, or 73 per cent, of the 2,523 respondents surveyed by the CT Group thought Labor would press on further with unannounced super tax changes, should the Albanese government be re-elected.
It goes to show, if you break a promise once, voters expect you to keep screwing them over.
Financial Services Council chief executive Blake Briggs says Labor’s push to get this loathed policy passed before parliament is dissolved for the election is worrying everyday ns who fear there will be more ‘secret’ plans to come.
‘ns do not trust politicians with their superannuation, but are particularly unnerved by the government’s renewed push to increase taxes on their retirement savings in the final weeks of this parliament,’ he tells me.
‘Labor’s perseverance in raising taxes is eroding ns’ trust in the government on the eve of the federal election.’
Both sides of politics have betrayed voters, but Labor’s super policy is particularly egregious because it was introduced without being taken the electorate so voters could form their own judgement.
Former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard introduced a carbon tax in 2012, despite vowing ‘there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead’ during the 2010 campaign.
The Labor Party caucus replaced her with Kevin Rudd, a year after that hated carbon tax was introduced, with support from the Greens.
Gillard’s Liberal predecessor John Howard lost the 2007 election after introducing the hated WorkChoices industrial relations laws that had not been put to the people during the 2004 campaign.
But he had been re-elected in 1998 after being upfront with voters about plans to introduce a 10 per cent GST, winning the respect of the voters in the process.
Albanese dumped his predecessor Bill Shorten’s hated plan to scrap negative gearing for future purchases of investment properties and halve the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount, soon after becoming Labor leader in 2019.
After losing two elections in Opposition with unpopular policies, Labor won the 2022 election by presenting itself as a small target.
But until Labor dumps its hated super policy, it has turned itself into a big target.
Labor argues its plan will only affect 80,000 people, but Financial Services Council modelling showed 500,000 ns would be hit in the coming years because the tax plan isn’t indexed for inflation.
The Albanese government is vowing to double super taxes from July 1 this year, which would be after the next election.
ns may have have other ideas, with plenty of voters worried enough about Labor springing another surprise tax on them if it is re-elected against the opinion poll odds.