Chalmers canvasses super on paid parental leave

The Federal Treasurer has canvassed the Government move to legislate for the superannuation guarantee to be attached to paid parental leave, when the time is right.

Discussing the Government’s intentions on superannuation policy ahead of delivering yesterday’s economic update, the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, dismissed criticisms of the Government’s approach to superannuation.

He said there had been a lot of changes imposed on superannuation funds and members over the last decade and that not all of them had been “well motivated”.

“We want to end the ideological war on super. And the big opportunity, not just for the government, but for the country is to recognise that superannuation is one of the things that we’ve got going for us,” Chalmers said.

“We want to make sure that the regulatory arrangements are right. We want to make sure that superannuation is being paid, we want to make sure we get to that 12% superannuation guarantee.”

“At some point, I’d like to find a way to responsibly fund paying it on paid parental leave. There’s a whole bunch of things we should be doing in super which we now have an opportunity to do because we’re not caught up in that ridiculous ideological war on industry super, in particular, by a Liberal Party which pretends to support superannuation at the same time as they undermine it at every turn.”

“We created super, we’re proud of it, it’s not perfect, there are ways to improve it. And we give ourselves ways to improve it by making sure that we’ve got all the arrangements in place in a way that’s not ideological, it’s not partisan, it’s all about the best thing for the funds and therefore the members of the funds.”