Speaking at the SMSF Association National Conference, SMSF Association head of policy Jordan George said one of the association’s key interests in 2017 was the application of early-release.
Mr George said they are currently still concerned with the growing instances of early release for medical procedures, and highlighted the prevalence of surgeons’ websites actually informing potential patients that super could be used.
“There’s been an explosion in the amount of people who are accessing super early to fund medical procedures, mainly weight-loss surgery,” he said.
“You can do a quick Google search and find a number of surgeons who have on their web-page: ‘Access your super to pay for this.’ It doesn’t say if you can’t afford this and you need a life-saving procedure — which is what the law says — then you can access your super,” he continued.
“They just say: access your super to pay for this and we think that’s something that the law needs to tighten up there.”
