Govt committed to SG increase but expect business pushback

Assistant Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and Financial Technology, Senator Jane Hume, said the Government is maintaining its commitment to increase the super guarantee (SG) to 12%, but expects business pushback.

The first increase was scheduled to take place from 1 July, 2021, from 9.5% to 10%, followed by 0.5% each year after that.

Speaking at Bloomberg’s The Inside Track webinar, Hume said it was the Government’s intention to increase the SG and they would not deviate from that.

“Having said that, I would not be surprised if we get a lot of pushback when that goes ahead next year from the business community who understand there is a limited amount of money out there to pay employees,” Hume said.

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“And when you increase the SG, something has to give, it might be hiring that extra employee or it might be a pay rise.”

Hume said even with industrial relation discussions happening later in the year, it would be difficult to renegotiate any change to the SG increase.

“I don’t want to anticipate what is going to come out of the JobMaker process, that’s an important part of the industrial relations reforms that are necessary to ensure we have a productive economy going forward,” Hume said.

“But it’s already law, so to undo existing legislation is a very difficult process and not one that I think is highly likely.”