Anthony Albanese deflects question on whether he’ll be immediately hit with proposed $3m super tax

Anthony Albanese sidestepped a question on whether he’ll be immediately hit with Labor’s proposed tax of super balances above $3m.

Anthony Albanese has sidestepped a question on whether he and politicians with more than $3m in their super balances will be required to immediately pay Labor’s proposed tax.

This follows comments from Employment and Industrial Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth stating that there will be provisions that mean people on defined superannuation funds won’t have to immediately pay tax even if their balance is above $3m.

Labor’s proposed plan is tipped to generate $2.7bn annually and hit superannuation balances over $3m with a 30 per cent tax, a doubling of the current rate.

As it stands, about 0.5 per cent or 800,000 Australians will be affected by the policy.

However unlike Australians on ordinary and self-managed super funds, long-serving politicians on defined benefit pensions like Penny Wong, Sussan Ley, Tanya Plibersek and the Prime Minister who entered parliament in 2004 will be able to defer paying the tax until after they retire.

While Labor is proposing to hit superannuation accounts with balances over $3m with a 30 per cent tax, politicians on the defined benefit scheme will likely not be liable to pay until they retire. Picture: NewsWire/ Martin Ollman

Speaking to Sky, Ms Rishworth was repeatedly asked whether Australians on defined benefit would be required to pay their tax while still working, or whether they’d only be liable once they retire.

While she didn’t directly answer the questions, she said that “the same provisions that have been used to treat, defined benefits schemes in the past under the Coalition and under previous governments have been applied,” and that the accounts are “treated differently”.

“What I’m saying is we have applied the exact same rules as in the past that had been how you treat defined benefit schemes to this provision as well,” she said.

“It’s entirely consistent and long standing and applies across the board to defined benefit schemes which the Commonwealth has constitutional power over.”

Amanda Rishworth said defined benefit pensions were ‘treated differently’. Picture: NewsWire/ Martin Ollman

When asked later, Mr Albanese also deflected a question on whether he would be subjected to the tax immediately, telling a journalist: “Look it applies to us as it applies across the board, but the legislation, of course, has yet to be carried by the parliament”.

The Coalition’s finance spokesman James Paterson, who has objected to the tax as it hits unrealised gains, said the government needs to be more “open and transparent” on the plan.

He specifically called on Mr Albanese to explain the “different treatment between different categories of retiree,” questioning whether he influenced the policy.

“Every other taxpayer, if they exceed the threshold, has to pay it in their working life but people like Anthony, on a defined benefit pension, only have to pay it after they retire,” he said.

“Now I think there is a very important question that arises out of this. Jim Chalmers has written rules which are favourable to his boss. Did Jim Chalmers ever discuss this with Anthony Albanese? Was it ever discussed in Cabinet or the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet?

“Did the Prime Minister exempt himself from that discussion? Did he remove himself from the room because of the significant personal conflict of interest that he has?”

Originally published as Anthony Albanese deflects question on whether he’ll be immediately hit with proposed $3m super tax