Australia’s super system can do more than play it safe
Australia’s super rules are discouraging long-term, high-growth investment. Reforming them could boost both retirees’ returns and national productivity.
Allegra Spender is the independent MP for Wentworth.
Australian policymakers often congratulate themselves for presiding over one of the world’s largest pension pools through our superannuation system.
But those same policymakers have also built a web of well-intentioned regulations that increasingly disincentivise investment in higher-return, longer-duration assets, leaving both retirees and the broader economy worse off.
The government has now opened the door to reform. We must seize this opportunity.
For more than two years, I have been speaking with venture capital and superannuation firms to understand why Australia invests relatively little in the sector, and why that share isn’t growing as it could within the superannuation sector.
