3 February 2023

Interview with Michael Rowland, News Breakfast, ABC

Note

Subjects: Crypto assets, superannuation, Medicare

MICHAEL ROWLAND:

Let’s bring you back home now, and the Federal Government says it is today taking a significant step towards regulating the world of cryptocurrency. It’s releasing a paper which it says will help the government decide which crypto assets are financial products and, therefore, require financial regulation. Joining me now is the Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones. Minister, good morning to you.

STEPHEN JONES:

Good morning. Good to be with you.

ROWLAND:

Why does crypto need further regulation?

JONES:

Well, over a million Australians have invested in cryptocurrency, most of them dabbling in it for investment purposes, not so much used as a means of exchange. We want to ensure that Australians who are investing in or using cryptocurrency can do so safely. We want to ensure that the system is stable and that any problems in the cryptocurrency area doesn't flow over into other areas of our financial markets. And, thirdly, we want to ensure that cryptocurrency is not an easy avenue for international criminals to use it to hide their nefarious activities. So protecting consumers, protecting our financial system and cracking down on criminals.

ROWLAND:

And also crypto exchanges, there was a big one that collapsed last year. That’s going to be part of this review?

JONES:

Yeah, looking at what has gone on in the collapse of FX, the second largest crypto exchange in the world. Luckily we haven’t much contagion of that over here in Australia. So the stages to our reform; first, bolstering up our enforcement of existing laws, ensuring that the Australian Securities and Investment Commission and the ACCC have a focus on, a laser-like focus on criminal activity and scam activity in this area. Secondly, ensuring that we have a pathway for reform. And, thirdly, ensuring that we have consumer protection mechanisms improved through the ACCC as well. The token mapping exercise, you can’t regulate what you don’t understand. So ensuring that we have a conversation with the Australian people about which of the cryptocurrencies, the tokens, if you like, that we are going to drag inside the financial services regulation system, which of them have absolutely nothing to do with financial services. Might be endlessly fascinating and useful, but they aren’t about financial services. And we’ll leave those alone. And, you know, they’ll be for other issues. But the ones that we really do care about is stuff around financial services.

ROWLAND:

Yeah, okay. We look forward to seeing where that review leads the government. Hey, speaking of financial services, you’re also the minister overseeing Australia’s superannuation system. Is the winding back of superannuation tax concessions on the table as part of the May Budget?

JONES:

Look, I’ve indicated there’s a couple of areas – one area in particular – where I think we can look at. But it’s important in the area of superannuation that we get the right order of things and that we don’t have continuous chopping and changing in our policy direction. So we’re consulting with stakeholders in the community. We’ll be launching a paper very, very soon on the objectives of superannuation. From our point of view, superannuation was established to provide retirement income for Australians. And we’ve had a look at it and we can see that there are a reasonably – a relatively small but significant number of accounts with, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, some of them with tens of millions of dollars in their superannuation …

(BREAK IN TRANSMISSION) 

ROWLAND:

Stephen Jones, we’ll give him –

JONES:

… state-managed purposes. They’re things that we are looking at.

ROWLAND:

Okay, our apologies to our viewers as well – we just lost you in transmission there, Stephen Jones. You mentioned at the start of that answer one area you’re looking at in particular when I asked about superannuation tax concessions and the Budget. What is that?

JONES:

Extremely high superannuation balances. The purpose of superannuation, Michael, is to provide for retirement income. If people have got superannuation balances in excess of $100 million or even $50 million, I think it’s pretty hard to argue that that’s about retirement income. It might be about estate management, it might be about tax management, but it’s not about retirement income. And that really is not the purpose of superannuation.

ROWLAND:

Okay. Some in the industry are calling for the cap to be as low as $5 million. Is that something you’re predisposed to capping?

JONES:

We don’t have a consultation with a preconceived outcome, but I’ve got to say, you know, $5 million is a lot closer to the purpose of superannuation than $100 million.

ROWLAND:

Okay.

JONES:

So, we’ll look at where the right number is, but it’s definitely something that we are considering.

ROWLAND:

Okay. Just very quickly before you go, National Cabinet is meeting today. Health issues, the health crisis really, very much front and centre. What are GPs in your electorate telling you about the pressures they face, and what can the government do to help them?

JONES:

I tell you what the people in the electorate are saying – that is, it’s impossible to find a bulk-billing doctor in the electorate and it’s very, very difficult to even get into a GP because there are less GPs practicing in the area. That our emergency wards are crowded and very difficult to get emergency – an urgent issue dealt with in our hospitals. So we’ve got a crisis in the healthcare system at large. You can’t fix one bit of it without having a look at the system as a whole. Mark Butler is – one of the first things he did when we came into government was commission this review of Medicare. There’s probably not a more important thing that the government is doing which will make a real difference to people around the country, and that is to ensure that people can get to see, into a doctor’s surgery, they can get the care that they need, whether it’s through a GP or an allied health professional, a nurse. That’s what’s important, and the system isn’t delivering that at the moment.

ROWLAND:

Okay, Stephen Jones, Assistant Treasurer, really appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for joining us.