Kennedy distances Treasury from super drawdown compulsion
The Federal Treasury has no desire to take away choice with respect to the way people draw down their superannuation balances, according to the Treasury secretary, Dr Steven Kennedy.
Asked to comment on reports of a Treasury discussion paper proposing to set draw-down rates for retirees with more than $200,000 in their account, Kennedy made clear that his view was that choices should be increased with respect to how retirees spent their superannuation, not the opposite.
Answering questions from Queensland independent senator, Gerard Rennick said he did not disagree with comments by the Senator about retirees being entitled to allocate their superannuation balances as they see fit.
“I don’t disagree with anything you said,” Kennedy said. “It is Important people have choice. And people may want to take super to retire debt.”
Kennedy noted that the chair of the Government’s Aged Care Financing Authority, Mike Callaghan had identified the importance of home ownership in post-retirement.
“We’ve engaged on the issue and the Government is concerned about people not being given all the choice they should around retirement products,” he said, observing that superannuation funds had tended to be more focused on accumulation than the retirement phase.
Kennedy said he believed policy-makers needed to be very careful about removing choice.
“I do wonder whether this is an area where at least some nudging is required,” he said.
Kennedy said that Treasury was really testing the hypothesis of people being confident to access money they had put aside for retirement.
“It’s not about taking away choice. It’s about people being offered enough choice,” he said.
Treasury being part of the Govt that has designed the worlds most complex retirement system.
The same morons that have tripled the cost of advice over 20 years with ever increasing Red Tape regulations.
Including FARSEA, LIF & removing Grandfathered Comms that wiped 45% of adviser out over last 5 years.
Now these Govt morons wonder why people can’t make good retirement choices because they can’t get or afford good Real advice.
Do these morons have any idea of the mess they have created and keep creating ?
Keep your snout out of the trough treasury. The Labour Party are looking for more ways to tax the savings of retirees, because they’re too gutless to tax the miners and the emerging oligarchs in Australia. This pathetic Government has sold the farm, and their only response is attack the retirees and the middle class. This is the problem when you have an ageing population, an unfunded Social Security, unfunded and rorted NDIS, no tax on big business. They only option is to hit the middle class and small business again.
The problem with the word “choice” being used anywhere near super is that it implies a default.