Senator Hume said it was aimed at tackling the gender super gap and “goes to the heart of fairness, equity and recognition of the sacrifices made within Australian families”.

“It represents a step towards ensuring that every Australian can look forward to a dignified and secure retirement, especially women,” she said.

Miller said one of the key considerations of the bill is the limit on this measure, and said it is actually driven by the general transfer balance cap.

“You can't split to your spouse if your spouse has more money than you, so it really is an equalisation thing. For example, if you've got one spouse with $1 million and the other spouse with $500,000, then you can split $250,000 so they both end up with $750,000.”

However, Miller said the fund may not have the liquidity to do a transaction of that value, and the maximum that can be split is up to the spouses’ general transfer balance cap.

“If you've got one spouse with $4 million and the other spouse with $500,000 or $1 million then in theory, you can split, or you can redistribute to take them to the $2 million transfer balance cap, therefore reducing your own balance from $4 million to $3 million, which has a nice alignment with the government’s proposed measure of Division 296 tax,” he said.

The frequency with which members may take advantage of this proposed strategy depends on how much money they have within their fund.

“The reality is, if you look at the average size of an SMSF, if you bring people equalising pre-retirement, either as a one-off or maybe over a two-year transaction, you have to consider how many re-contribution strategies you may have in you.”

“You might not have enough to get you from 65 all the way to 75, so doing two re-contribution strategies within the one fund versus one from a member, and then the other one in a few years.”

He added that the proposal could be used strategically, in addition to the more restrictive contribution splitting, to provide better planning opportunities, particularly if there is liquidity in the fund.

“It becomes quite an interesting measure when you look at it, that from an alignment point of view, with the Objective of Super, because it talks about words like equality and fairness. Females take more time off work from a child-raising point of view, so therefore they're out of the superannuation system,” he said.

“And things like paid paternity, paid maternity leave and super on top of that are issues that are being addressed, but do they go far enough in the sense of helping fix that window of inopportunity from a contribution point of view?

“I think it becomes a tough bill to argue against. I think it's going to open up quite a fascinating debate, particularly because we now do have an objective of super, which, for the last eight years, we didn't have.”