Opposition financial services spokesman Luke Howarth has expressed his disappointment with the government’s lack of transparency around changes to superannuation, which is evident in the design and planned implementation of the Division 296 tax.
“One of Prime Minister Albanese’s first actions when he was elected in government was to attempt to roll back super fund disclosure rules, which would have left customers in the dark about super fund donations, marketing and sponsorship expenditures. It didn’t go ahead, but it was sort of a theme right from the beginning of this government,” Howarth said at the SMSF Association National Conference 2025 in Melbourne today.
“In relation to SMSFs, we’ve seen them in particular be attacked by the government this term and obviously the biggest attack has been the attempt to bring in the Division 296 super tax, which, of course, was a broken promise.
“We know that the Prime Minister, before the last election, said that there wouldn’t be any significant changes to super.
“Well, Division 296 is a massive change to super, not only as it doubles the tax on amounts above $3 million, but it also ensures there would be a tax on unrealised capital gains.
“It means that retirees and super fund members will face tax bills on money they haven’t even earned yet.
“This will hit small family business owners, it will hit farming families and, of course, it will hit SMSFs the hardest.
“It’s important that the leader of the country says what they’re going to do. So when you say ‘no changes to super’, don’t make changes to super.”
He was also critical of the significant increase in adviser levies for the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR) and the nature of the claims being assessed by the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
“Last month, it was revealed that financial advisers, mortgage brokers and other sectors are set to be slugged with record CSLR levies this year and urgent action is needed to get costs down,” he said.
“The advice community has been outraged by this for at least the last two years and the government watched as costs on this scheme have blown out and are now kicking the can down the road.
“What I think has been particularly dreadful about the scheme, it’s been revealed that 80 per cent of the claims are for ‘but for’ compensation.
“These are people claiming compensation where they didn’t have a capital loss, but just could have been in a better position.
“That wasn’t the intention of the scheme. It was a last resort scheme, not about guaranteeing investment performance.”