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Don't Forget Superannuation

6th May 2010
by Brian Boyd, VTHC Secretary

Superannuation has been in the news recently following on from the Federal Government’s release of the Henry Tax Review.

Industry Superannuation really got going in the early 1980’s when the national trade union movement, combined with the then Hawke/Keating government, to give it a big push.

Trade unions conceded a percentage of their normal wages and conditions claims to get this important initiative off the ground.

It is important for the union movement to remind their members and the wider community, as often as possible, that the right to superannuation contributions was won by the sacrifice of many workers over 20 years ago.

You can be sure the employers and politicians won’t go out of their way to reveal that the now established right to universal superannuation was a union movement achievement.

The ACTU is right on one thing, the recently announced increase from 9% to 12% over the next 10 years is far too slow.

In fact an increase in superannuation contributions by the employer should have already been up to 15% as proposed by the Keating government pre-1996! When arch-conservative John Howard won office that year he scrapped that initiative and the Superannuation Guarantee Change (SGC) has remained officially at 9% ever since.

Howard’s move gutted national savings by billions of dollars and made sure more Australians, well into the future, will have to rely on the pension to survive.

The union movement should push for 12% now, 15% in less than three years time and launch a major campaign to have the SGC go to 20% by 2015.

We owe it to those hundreds of thousands of workers back in the 1980’s, who held back on full wage increases and still not have enough ‘super’ in their accounts to retire on with dignity.