Teal MP Monique Ryan joins the party in slamming Labor’s super tax plan

Independent teal Monique Ryan has joined her fellow crossbenchers in jumping to the defence of Australia’s wealthiest superannuants.

Monique Ryan with her supporters at Malvern Campaign office on May 4. Picture: Tony Gough

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Teal independent Monique Ryan has ramped up her criticism of the Albanese government’s plan to tax unrealised capital gains on super balances over $3m arguing it sets “a dangerous precedent”.

The Kooyong MP’s intervention on Monday comes after months of more vocal criticism of the Labor plan from her crossbench colleagues Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall.

In a statement released on Monday the Climate-200 backed crossbencher urged Labor to “urgently reconsider its poorly considered plan” to alter tax settings on the country’s top super balances.

“We need to broaden our tax base and take the tax burden off young wage earners,” Ms Ryan said.

“But the government’s plan to increase tax on high balances shouldn’t include taxation of ­unrealised gains, and it must be indexed.”

The Climate-200 backed member for Kooyong, one of the wealthiest electorates in the country, last year lobbied the government to scrap the Morrison-era stage three tax cuts which would have bolstered the hip-pockets of a large proportion of her constituents.

The move represented a departure from her crossbench colleagues, as Ms Spender and Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps both said the government should have honoured its election commitment to the tax cuts.

“My community has been clear with me: if the government is going to add to inflation with tens of billions of dollars in tax cuts, it should do so in a fairer way,” Ms Ryan said early last year.

This time around, the member for the affluent inner-city seat has jumped to the defence of the top 0.5 per cent of superannuants set to be slugged with a tax on unrealised capital gains.

After narrowly retaining her spot in parliament by just under 1400 votes, weathering a 1.9 per cent swing towards Liberal hopeful Amelia Hamer, Ms Ryan called upon Anthony Albanese to “intervene against this harmful and unfair tax”.

The teal MP flagged the policy’s potential to encourage wealthier investors to pull their money from super and instead pump capital into the property market, which she argues “would likely increase house prices”.

Ms Ryan also raised concerns around the consequences for holders of self-managed superannuation funds, effects on start-up investment for businesses, and the lack of indexation that means the policy “would affect all Gen Z Australians by the time they turn 60”.

“The country is in desperate need of real tax reform, not creeping tax increases by stealth,” she said.