The Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Coalition each have their own strategies to address the retirement savings adequacy issue, political party representatives told attendees yesterday at a luncheon hosted by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia.
The compulsory superannuation guarantee increase from 9 to 12 per cent is on Labor's agenda if the party is re-elected to government, ALP strategist Bruce Hawker said.
"To be able to increase the compulsory contribution from 9 to 12 per cent over a period of years is something that is being lost entirely in this debate and it's a very important aspect of the quality of people's lives," he said.
"If Tony Abbott gets in there will not be an increase in compulsory superannuation from 9 to 12 per cent and I think a lot of people around the country will probably start to think about this issue.
"The government has been making it clear that part and parcel of signing up to the mining tax is that Australians get their fair share in various ways and one of those ways is an increase in superannuation benefits."
Meanwhile, former Liberal MP Ross Cameron confirmed that the national retirement savings of Australians was in fact on the Coalition's radar if elected to government.
"I don't think there's any doubt in the minds of the Coalition that national savings is a massive issue for us. We certainly saw it as a feature of the [Malcolm] Turnbull thesis and it was what [Peter] Costello put on the agenda - the need for an annual demographic statement," he said.
"There's a high level of awareness that the ageing population presents probably our single greatest long-term economic challenge.
"What Tony Abbott has said in relation to root and branch tax reform ... is that he's going to go ahead and look at the other 111 of the 112 recommendations of the Henry review."
