“Firstly, at the higher-end balances, we’ve made a number of adjustments which reflect the fact that we’ve engaged deeply over the last couple of years and taken on board some feedback. Which is exactly what you want governments to do.”

Mulino dodged questions on whether he had supported the original draft of the legislation, instead reiterating the government’s claim it had engaged with stakeholders over the past two years.

“I’ve been in this role for six months or so, and on a number of occasions I’ve met with stakeholders who have put a wide range of positions. I think the Treasurer and a number of other senior members of the government have acknowledged that there were elements of the package on which there was a wide range of views.”

“So, we have been consulting and that’s exactly what you’d hope that governments would do. And then we stepped through that feedback carefully and methodically and came up with a different and better way to achieve the same core objective.”

Mulino continued that the latest iteration of the legislation does deal with concessionality at the very high end of balances, and will also provide much “better and fairer” treatment of concessional tax treatment for those earning less than $45,000.

He added that despite the Greens’ comments that the government is catering to the super wealthy, the fact that 1.3 million people will benefit from the LISTO component of the revised legislation should help to garner their support.

“I’d find it very hard to imagine the Greens not supporting a package with all of those elements.”

“The government has a very wide-ranging tax reform agenda already. This is one element of it. Another element of it is the fact that we’re going to be bringing in tax cuts for all taxpayers by reducing the lowest tax rate from 16 to 15 then 14 per cent. And of course that was one of the reasons why the LISTO changes were so important.”

He said there were no plans from the government to start looking at family trust arrangements, and said it would concentrate on the policies currently on its agenda.

“We now need to focus on undertaking consultation to make sure that we get this revised package correct. It’s a complicated set of reforms dealing with superannuation tax concessions in a holistic way.”

“So we’re now going to step through further consultation to get all the details right there and that’s really the focus.”