Speaking at the FSC BT Political Series Breakfast, Senator Katy Gallagher said the consultation period following the release of the draft legislation for the objective for super was only around nine days and there remained a lot of unanswered questions.
“Not just about the objectives but about the secondary objectives, the subsidiary objectives and how they relate to the primary objective, where they are located in the legislation, at the moment they’re in the explanatory memorandum but not in the bill,” said Ms Gallagher.
“It seems to me that we should at least attempt to get a broad political consensus on what the objective should be before an objective is legislated – I don’t know if that’s possible but we need the time to get it right.”
Ms Gallagher said many people have told her that their preference would be to have no objective for super if the one the government has nobody agrees with, particularly given “the role it plays in formulating public policy”.
“In terms of the objective of super, I have sought the agreement of the government to refer this off to a committee,” she said.
“So my own view is let’s get it right; the government agreed to carve that legislation off and it will go to a committee inquiry and we’ll be able to have that discussions and it’s due to report in February of next year.”