Wherever your views sit in relation to the Budget that was handed down by the Government on Tuesday, it was undeniably one of the most talked about budgets in recent memory. 

Budgets usually only register among political, financial and industry bubbles, but the bubbles have burst with this one. Everyone has taken an interest. 

That’s because it delivered one most significant waves of tax reform in decades — reshaping negative gearing, capital gains tax and trust taxation. 

For super, this was a steady as she goes budget, with a handful of modest but important new investments. 

The Budget also revealed that the Australian Taxation Office has not yet set itself any performance targets for unpaid super recovery when game-changing payday super laws start on July 1. 

Unpaid super currently costs 3.3 million working Aussies a shocking $5.7 billion a year – this is money they have earned and are legally owed by their employers.  

Yet the ATO has signalled it will only set a new performance target for unpaid super recovery when it has “sufficient data on which to determine a performance benchmark”. 

The Government must set the ATO bold targets to recover that money owed to everyday working Australians. 

It is also long past time to end an unfair, outdated and discriminatory exclusion of under-18 workers from being guaranteed super if they work less than 30 hours a week for the one employer. This will be a watershed moment for intergenerational equity. 

Ending the denial of guaranteed super for young workers and domestic workers such as cleaners and nannies who work in people’s homes would powerfully build on the Government’s reforms in recent budgets. Those earlier reforms include payday super laws, adding super to Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave, and boosting the Low-Income Super Tax Offset for 1.3 million low-paid workers from 1 July 2027. 

It’s also crucial that the Government fast-track long-promised reforms to help Australians to get more safe guidance and advice from their own super fund – those tools are crucial to keep consumers safe from predatory social media clickbait ads like those that targeted the Shield and First Guardian victims. 

If the Government follows through with stronger consumer protections, meaningful unpaid super enforcement, and universal coverage from the start of working life, Australia’s super system will not just be bigger — it will be fairer, safer and more effective for every worker. 

Watch our post-budget webinar here.