The Opposition financial services spokesman, Mathias Cormann, has claimed the Labor government’s inaction to fix problems of overtaxing superannuation monies is causing enormous concern to select Australians.
In a statement from Cormann, he said delays of more than 300 days finalising complaints within the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT) is “causing significant inconvenience” to many and “undermining confidence in Australia’s superannuation system.”
“Labor’s inaction on this on top of Bill Shorten’s failure to fix problems of overtaxing more and more Australians who inadvertently put too much of their own money into super is causing enormous concerns to people getting caught up in this,” he said.
“Australians deserve better than having to wait over 300 days, nearly an entire year, to resolve complaints about their retirement savings.”
He said if the federal government hadn’t “mismanaged our public finances” a solution to properly resource the SCT would be found.
“Superannuation is the cornerstone of Australia’s retirement income policy. Australians must have timely access to any process to resolve their complaints when problems arise. Otherwise they will lose faith in the system,” he said.
“The Minister cannot again simply pass the buck on this. It is time Bill Shorten started to focus on doing the job he’s got rather than spend all his time chasing the job he wants.”
Cormann said the blow out in resolving complaints comes at a time when total complaints lodged with the Tribunal have actually fallen over the same time period.
In 2009 to 2010 superannuation complaints took 256 days to resolve, while in 2008 to 2009 resolution took 235 days.
Shorten was unavailable for comment by InvestorDaily‘s deadline.
