According to SPAA, an increase in the pension age will mean those in labor-intensive jobs may need to access a type of social security benefit to “survive”.
SPAA said what is saved in the cost of the age pension may result in an increase in other government social security expenditure.
“Increasing the preservation age beyond the current graduated increase to age 60 by 2024, and potentially aligning it with the age pension age, will mean there will be more pressure on cost of social security,” said SPAA’s director for technical and professional standards, Graeme Colley.
“People will be forced to seek other types of benefit and if current rules continue with an increased pension age any amounts accumulating in superannuation are excluded for the assets test,” he said.
“Our nation, and particularly future retirees, will be best served by mature and reasoned consideration of the issues rather than seeking out silver bullets such as simply aligning preservation age with an increased age pension age,” he added.
Quite right. Super should be accessible as a general income averaging device. All that is required is that benefits come out as a lifetime income stream and social security benefits are income tested $1 for $1 against super income.
If they deny access to super, they will only drive people out of super into equally tax effective investment vehicles which already exist elsewhere.