Last week, Wilson told SMSF Adviser that many in the corporate sector have understood the significant unintended consequences of the proposed tax and had now started to actively campaign against it.

Other industry chiefs such as former QSuper chair Karl Morris, CSL chairman Brian Mc­Namee, and Sydney Swans chairman and MA Financial group vice chairman Andrew Pridham openly condemned Labor’s plan to tax unrealised capital gains in the mainstream media.

Wilson said that although the Greens had not focused on either this aspect of the proposed bill or the suggested amendment to index the Division 296 tax, he is hopeful the continued outspoken opposition from many sectors within the Australian economy will convince the Greens to support the recommendations already made.

“With indexation [politicians] need to realise that it can’t be tied to indexation off inflation, it has to be off asset price growth,” Wilson said.

“The whole idea of indexation is not to disadvantage younger Australians. Everyone knows that asset price inflation is higher than the CPI or quoted inflation, so if this tax is only indexed to CPI it will end up as disadvantageous to millions of young Australians as we have seen happen in housing.”

He continued that successive governments have failed to pay attention to productivity and its link to real wage growth, and said he was buoyed by comments days after the election from Treasurer Jim Chalmers that in this term, the government would re-focus on productivity.

The failures of the proposed $3 million super tax legislation primarily revolve around the issue of taxing unrealised capital gains, which will subsequently harm trillions of dollars of investment capital that would support small businesses, he said.

“I have got a lot of faith in the Greens to fully understand the significant unintended consequences on the tax of unrealised gains. Our own detailed study showed that $155 billion would come out of super and go into the housing market.”

“The only reason most people object to this legislation is because of the taxing of unrealised capital gains, not because of the rise from 15 per cent to 30 per cent tax over $3 million. It’s about the taxing of profit that you may never make.

“The logic behind the Greens not supporting indexation and the question of the threshold being $2 million or $3 million – they are not the big hurdles to overcome. It is the stopping of the taxing of unrealised capital gains that is the issue, but I believe the Greens will be pragmatic in their approach.”

Wilson added that if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese indicated he was happy to listen to the people, he hoped that once he fully understood the impact the tax would have on the Australian community, he would remove it.

“If he doesn’t remove it, he is lying about being prepared to listen to Australians.”

“This has the ability to destroy the super industry, and you would question why anyone would put themselves in that position.”

“But people are smart. In the UK the government increased CGT on average up to 20 per cent and that actually saw the tax the government collected drop to 10 per cent. This is now the question we have in superannuation. I have heard a lot of people say [if this tax goes through] they will not put any more money into superannuation. It is a Draconian and backwards step.”

Meanwhile, Tony Greco, senior tax adviser for the Institute of Public Accountants, said the strong voter mandate opens the door for the government to now proceed with its unfinished business.

“The Senate and not the House of Representatives was the issue in the previous government, but it is likely now to have enough seats with the support of the Greens to finally enact this significant change,” Greco said.

“The taxing of unrealised gains could now become an unwelcome reality as they [ the Treasurer] previously held steadfast to reintroducing this flawed taxing mechanism if they were to be re-elected.

“The income it would have generated is already baked into the forward estimates, so one would expect it is only a matter of time, as it was intended to start on 1 July 2025.

“It is one of only a handful of measures of significance that generate revenue as opposed to all the spending commitments that have been made, adding to our worsening level of structural deficits.”

CA ANZ said it will also continue to oppose the government’s planned tax on unrealised gains in superannuation balances over $3 million.

“We want the Albanese Government to go back to the drawing board and fix the major flaws in this policy – no one should be forced to borrow money or or sell assets to pay their tax bill,” chief executive Ainslie van Onselen said.