Next phase of QAR reforms won’t be rushed: Jones
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones says the third phase of the QAR reforms will not be rushed and need to be carefully considered before decisions are made.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Jones said the changes announced this week to allow professional advisers and superannuation funds to provide advice were pillar one and two of the reforms which he considered as urgent.
“Pillar three is everything else and we’ll work through that in a consultative and workman‑like fashion,” he said.
“But I’m not putting it in the burning decks must‑do‑immediately category. I’m putting it in the let’s hasten slowly and carefully consider that one.”
The statement comes after the SMSFA urged the government to make a more immediate decision about the clarification of the definition of personal advice, on which SMSFA CEO Peter Burgess said other reforms should be based.
Mr Jones said the changes announced so far are about “dealing with the fact that we’ve got five million Australians who are either at or approaching retirement”.
“Thanks to superannuation, they’ve got more savings than they’ve ever had in our nation’s history, an average $200,000 in retirement now, as you hit retirement,” he said.
“They’re still going to have a necessary interface with the pension system. It can be complex and confusing. They need to get some basic advice to help them work their way through that.
“It’s about dealing with those issues and ensuring we can have a safe environment for funds to be able to provide that advice. I think that’s urgent as well.”
Mr Jones said the reason banks were excluded from the QAR reforms is because the sector had removed itself from superannuation and retirement
“They’ve vacated that territory, it’s now the superannuation sector [which deals with that],” he said.
“People go to their superannuation fund for retirement income advice, so, I think if we deal with that first, we’ll probably end up sorting about 80 per cent of the issue and then I can turn my mind to the 20 per cent of the issue, which will be about what people need to get from banks and what people need to get from their insurance companies.”
Mr Jones said Australia has a very targeted pension system with the income and asset tests to ensure “that people who don’t need the pension don’t get it” and that it tapers off as people have more income and more assets at their disposal.
“The correlative of that is that if you do have savings, then the relationship between your private savings and private pension and the government‑provided pension can be complex and you need to work through that,” he said.
“And for most Australians, they’ll need help and assistance and information and advice to do that, and we want to help them get there.
“An extraordinary number of people over the age of 65, who aren’t working anymore, have still got their savings in the accumulation phase, which means the money and the earnings are attracting – or the earnings are attracting a 15 per cent tax rate. If they flip that over into the pension phase, it’ll be attracting zero per cent.
“An extraordinary number of people haven’t made that basic decision, probably because they don’t know about it.”
