On Monday night’s tension-laden episode of Q&A, Joe Hockey added to Budget controversy when he suggested government changes to the age people can access their superannuation at, also known as ‘the preservation age,’ might be considered.
Following the shows airing, the Abbott government assured individuals no negative implications would occur to superannuation funds during their first term, but Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson has come out and said changes to the preservation age are “inevitable.”
In a radio interview this week, Paul Rickard from the Switzer Super Report made a similar argument.
“I think it’s inevitable that the time when you can access your super also has to go up to at least 62 – that would be the first step – and more likely – 65.”
Rickard said that the last government had the pension age set to increase to 67, which would have created a seven-year gap between access to superannuation and the pension.
“Now if you’re talking about increasing the pension age to 70, the gap becomes 10 years,” he said.
It has also been reported across several media outlets this week, that Parkinson believes there needs to be more sensible consideration of the increase to the retirement age from 2035, so that societal expectations can be set at realistic levels.
“It is unrealistic to imply that someone who is doing heavy manual labour can necessarily work through to age 70,” he said.
“What that leads us to is the need to start to think more seriously about how people manage different careers throughout their life and how we manage the transition.”
At present, the preservation age is 60 for people who were born after June 30, 1964.