Media Release

ASFA calls for measures to improve the equity of superannuation

10 February 2021

ASFA calls for measures to improve the equity of superannuation

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) Pre-Budget Submission released today focuses on the findings of the Retirement Income Review (RIR) on equity in the system.

While the RIR found Australia’s retirement income system is effective, it made a number of observations about the fairness of current tax concessions for superannuation and the amount of support provided to higher-income earners.

While the superannuation system is well-designed and working for the majority of Australians, ASFA acknowledges that there is merit in addressing concerns about fairness in the system.

In this context, recent changes to tax rates have created an unintended distortion where low-income earners between $37,000 and $45,000 pay a similar tax rate on superannuation contributions to the marginal tax they pay on wages. ASFA recommends that the low-income superannuation tax offset should apply to individuals with taxable income of up to $45,000.

However, ASFA acknowledges that there is a fiscal impact from this crucial change and there are equity grounds for adjusting settings applicable to those with higher incomes and/or high account balances as well. In this regard, ASFA considers that equity across the system can be improved through a modest reduction in the Division 293 threshold from $250,000, removing indexation of the transfer balance cap and removing balances above $5 million from the concessionally taxed superannuation system.

“Superannuation is about ensuring people have adequate income in retirement, it is not about facilitating excessive wealth transfers,” said ASFA CEO Dr Fahy.

To help improve retirement for people working in the gig economy and in other circumstances where they are missing out on super, ASFA’s Pre-Budget Submission also focuses on the need for a new ‘dependent contractor’ category for the Superannuation Guarantee (SG); tougher sham contracting penalties; SG for the self-employed; and elimination of the $450 threshold for entitlement to the SG.

“In addition, technology is changing and with Single Touch Payroll we are well placed to modernise the system and allow super to be paid at the same time as wages. This initiative would make the system more efficient and protect people’s savings,” added Dr Fahy.

For further information, please contact:

Jacqui Maddock, 0451 949 300.

About ASFA

ASFA is the peak policy, research and advocacy body for Australia’s superannuation industry. It is a not-for-profit, sector-neutral, and non-party political, national organisation. ASFA’s mission is to continuously improve the superannuation system, so all Australians can enjoy a comfortable and dignified retirement.

Carmen Beverley-Smith

Executive Director - Superannuation, Life & Private Health Insurance, APRA

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Carmen joined APRA in March 2023 and holds the role of Executive Director, Life and Private Health Insurance and Superannuation.  

She has had an esteemed career in financial services, spanning over 25 years. She has held diverse leadership roles at Westpac and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, including across risk, transformation and change, product and portfolio development, and sales and service. 

Prior to joining APRA, she held the role of General Manager, Risk Transformation Delivery Integration at Westpac. This involved leading the group-wide implementation of a suite of solutions to uplift risk management capability and develop data, analytics and reporting. 

Carmen leads with a values-driven approach and a particular interest in developing and mentoring talent. 

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Accounting, is a certified Chartered Accountant and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. 

Amy C. Edmondson

Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School

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Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.

Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011, and most recently was ranked #1 in 2021 and 2023; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019, and Talent Award in 2017.  She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organisational learning, and her articles have been published in numerous academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. Her 2019 book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth (Wiley), has been translated into 15 languages. Her prior books – Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy (Jossey-Bass, 2012), Teaming to Innovate (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Extreme Teaming (Emerald, 2017) – explore teamwork in dynamic organisational environments. In Building the future: Big teaming for audacious innovation (Berrett-Koehler, 2016), she examines the challenges and opportunities of teaming across industries to build smart cities. 

Edmondson’s latest book, Right Kind of Wrong (Atria), builds on her prior work on psychological safety and teaming to provide a framework for thinking about, discussing, and practicing the science of failing well. First published in the US and the UK in September, 2023, the book is due to be translated into 24 additional languages, and was selected for the Financial Times and Schroders Best Business Book of the Year award.

Before her academic career, she was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked on transformational change in large companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, and her book A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller (Birkauser Boston, 1987) clarifies Fuller’s mathematical contributions for a non-technical audience. Edmondson received her PhD in organisational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design from Harvard University.

 

Daniel Mulino MP

Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services

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Born in Brindisi, Italy, Daniel was a young child when he moved with his family to Australia. He grew up in Canberra and completed his first degrees – arts and law – at the ANU. He then completed a Master of Economics (University of Sydney) and a PhD in economics from Yale.

He lectured at Monash University, was an economic adviser in the Gillard government and was a Victorian MP from 2014 to 2018. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer of Victoria, Daniel helped deliver major infrastructure projects and developed innovative financing structures for community projects.

In 2018 he was preselected for the new federal seat of Fraser and became its first MP at the 2019 election, re-elected in 2022 and 2025. From 2022 to 2025, Daniel was chair of the House of Representatives’ Standing Economics Committee in which he chaired inquiries; economic dynamism, competition and business formation and insurers’ responses to 2022 major floods claims.

In 2025, he became the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services.

In August 2022, Daniel published ‘Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia’, which aims to explore the ways in which an insurance approach can improve the effectiveness of government service delivery.