Completing the reform journey to adequate, secure and sustainable retirement incomes for all Australians 1 November 2016, by Andrew Podger

The Committee for Sustainable Retirement Incomes (CSRI) held its second Leadership Forum on 12-13 October 2016. The Committee is an independent think tank which exists to progress policies with the goal of encouraging adequate retirement incomes on a fair and fiscally sustainable basis. The Forum identified wide agreement to a menu of further reforms to realise the full potential of Australia’s still-maturing retirement incomes system: adequate, secure and sustainable retirement incomes for all.

The challenge is to convince politicians that the reform journey will not be over after passage of the current package of superannuation tax changes. This will require demonstrating extensive agreement among stakeholders, identifying a pathway of incremental steps that may gain bipartisan support, and being consistent with short and long-term budgetary imperatives.

The Forum focused on three detailed papers which were prepared following a series of roundtables of experts and commissioned papers. TTPI contributed to two of these roundtables. The overall conclusion from the papers and the discussion at the Forum is that the top priority now should be on converting people’s increasing superannuation balances into appropriate and secure income streams.

Post-retirement Incomes

Australia has successfully established a robust system of accumulating savings, but has yet to design the pensions phase. In many respects, this is a far more complex task than designing and building the accumulation phase, for a number of reasons:
- people’s circumstances vary more at, and through, retirement;
- the tax and pension means test arrangements are difficult to navigate;
- retirees do not have the option they had in the accumulation phase to increase work hours and therefore superannuation contributions;
- some retirees face cognitive decline and many rely increasingly on others to advise them or to manage their affairs; and
- superannuation balances represent most retirees’ second largest asset, and the one they are least familiar with managing.

Read the full article at Austaxpolicy blog