Kim Beazley has officially reached a ton. It has been a staggering 100 days since the Federal Budget and still Mr Beazley is unable to tell Australians whether or not he will support the most dynamic reforms to superannuation in Australia’s history.
Significantly, two weeks of Parliamentary sittings have gone by and Mr Beazley has had the perfect opportunity to finally tell Australians where he stands on superannuation.
However, rather than have the ticker to make an announcement on an issue that is important to ordinary Australians, Mr Beazley has maintained his ‘three minds’ policy – ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘don’t know’.
Mr Beazley could have used the last fortnight to tell Australians whether or not Labor supports:
- abolishing end benefits tax on superannuation;
- abolishing reasonable benefits limits;
- extending the co-contribution scheme to the self employed; and
- halving the age pension assets test taper rate to $1.50 per fortnight from 20 September 2007.
The Government has received more than 1500 written submissions and more than 3500 phone calls as part of the public consultation, broadly supporting the superannuation reforms - but there has been nothing from Labor.
If thousands of other stakeholders can outline their position on super, why can’t Mr Beazley and Labor?