Chartered Accountants Australia, the Institute of Financial Professionals and the Institute of Public Accountants welcome the opportunity to comment on the Superannuation (Objective) Bill 2023.

In our view legislation’s primary purpose is to influence behaviour. It does this primarily by imposing penalties for non-compliance with a particular rule. For example, any superannuation fund trustee that breaches a superannuation law risks being reprimanded.

As is well known the Parliamentary legislative agenda is increasingly crowded especially in the Treasury portfolio. As a result we believe that only legislation that will lead to tangible policy outcomes should be progressed.

We do not think that the Bill satisfies this requirement. for the following reasons:

• The suggested objective of superannuation is government and superannuation sector focused when it should be individual outcomes focused
• This objective is too narrow and should cover not only superannuation but also other retirement aspects such as the aged pension, aged care and old-age health
• The suggested compliance mechanism is opaque and has no penalty for non-compliance

It seems highly doubtful to us that a government would impose any penalty on itself if it sought to pass laws or put in place regulations that were inconsistent with the provisions proposed in this Bill.

We agree with the Financial System Inquiry – FSI – final report (refer p. 96) which said, “The superannuation system does not have a consistent set of policies that work towards common
objectives. Unfortunately, this extends to the whole retirement system not just superannuation. That is, the retirement system does not have a set of consistent set of policies.

It is our considered view that it would be better to draft an objective for the whole retirement system.