‘The people’s money’: Hanson, Joyce defend proposed super shake-up

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has defended her party’s new policy allowing renters and mortgage holders to dip into their superannuation to make ends meet as she railed against the government and unions for withholding “the people’s money”.

At a rare Canberra press conference alongside her treasury spokesman Barnaby Joyce, Hanson dismissed claims the policy would be inflationary or discourage employers from offering raises, and clarified that almost two-thirds of workers would be able to access the scheme.

“The cost of living is forcing people out of their rental accommodation. People living it rough in the cars, couch-surfing, don’t have homes, living in tents, and also those people with the way the economy’s gone because this Labor Party has driven it into the ground, and I believe that these people need a helping hand now,” Hanson said.

The policy, announced on Monday morning, would allow renters and mortgage holders access to a quarter of their future superannuation contributions over the next three years. According to One Nation, a median worker would receive an additional $2300 per year, with the income taxed at the concessional superannuation rate of 15 per cent.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor attacked the policy on Monday morning, with Chalmers saying it was setting the scene for the next election to be a “referendum on super”.

“One Nation is proposing a full-frontal attack on superannuation,” he said. “This is not about the usual early access provisions. This is about One Nation not supporting super because they don’t support Australian workers.”

Chalmers said One Nation’s policy was a “recipe to make Australian workers tens of thousands of dollars worse off in retirement”, and argued that compound interest losses would negatively outweigh the short-term financial benefit of the new policy.

“They don’t support better wages for workers, and they don’t support decent superannuation and retirement incomes for workers – they’ve made that really clear – and that’s because every time they come here, they don’t vote the way that Australian workers need them to. They vote the way that Gina Rinehart tells them to,” Chalmers said.

Hanson promptly called Chalmers “hysterical” in a post on social media and blamed him for the state of the economy. “Perhaps if you hadn’t so thoroughly buggered the economy, Jim, they wouldn’t need to [access superannuation],” she wrote.

Taylor’s criticised the lack of detail in the policy, including its impact on paid parental leave and concessional caps. The Liberal leader offered his support for the superannuation guarantee, and did not forecast a return to the policy the Coalition took to the last election that would allow early access to superannuation for first-home buyers.

Hanson published a two-page explainer on her social media which includes details of the tax implications and mechanisms of the policy.

At the press conference, Hanson and Joyce said there would be no threshold of financial difficulty for access to the scheme, meaning all renters and mortgage holders – approximately two-thirds of the population – could benefit.

Joyce said he anticipated that “overwhelmingly” people would only access the scheme if they were in financial hardship, and would need to make applications to their superannuation funds claiming support to make rent and mortgage payments. He acknowledged that “a couple” of people may attempt to flout the system.

During the COVID pandemic, the then-Coalition government allowed people facing financial hardship to access up to $20,000 in superannuation. About 2.6 million Australians accessed the scheme, taking out about $40 billion.

The policy has been blamed for artificially inflating house prices, with those accessing the scheme calculated to be about $120,000 worse off at retirement age. Studies found some people who accessed the scheme used the money for gambling.

Hanson said One Nation’s policy would have a “neutral” impact on inflation, and rebuffed attacks from the government claiming the move was an attack on superannuation as a broad policy.

“That’s the furthest thing from the truth. I’m not intending to shut super down. If anything, if you look at it, superannuation only just about four years ago was at 9 per cent and over four years it has risen to 12 per cent. So we’re not taking anything away,” Hanson said erroneously.

Compulsory superannuation contributions were last at 9 per cent in 2013, rising incrementally to their current rate of 12 per cent. The Albanese government has this year required employers to pay superannuation on every pay cycle, rather than quarterly, to improve compounding interest.

Monday’s press conference was the first time One Nation had formally spoken to journalists at Parliament House since May, an appearance derailed by questions to Senator Malcolm Roberts about his views on the motivation behind the Bondi shooting.

The announcement is the latest in a series of policies put forward by One Nation since its meteoric rise in the polls. Last month, the party announced a legally questionable plan to bar foreign fighters from re-entering the country, and has also proposed a 75 per cent cut to the tobacco excise.

In this masthead’s most recent Resolve Political Monitor, One Nation returned to second place in the polls, garnering 26 per cent of the primary vote. Labor has 28 per cent, with the Coalition at 23 per cent.

The press conference was halted after questions turned to Victorian party leader Warren Pickering’s alleged history of illicit drug use and “sexual deviance”, as reported by The Australian.

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