Address to the Financial Services Council

22 September 2026

Address to the Financial Services Council

Check against delivery

It has long been understood that there are three pillars of a retirement system: voluntary savings including home ownership, superannuation, and the age pension.

The key test of a secure retirement is whether a person owns a home.

Owning a home was found by the 2020 Retirement Income Inquiry to be the centrepiece of a secure retirement. The latest 2026 IGR reinforces this, stating:

“Home ownership is also a strong predictor of financial wellbeing in retirement.”

These are the economic benefits. Of course, the psychological benefits of a home that belongs to an individual are equally immense.

We must be clear that housing sits at the heart of retirement policy alongside private savings, superannuation and the pension.

Each element should work together.

Today I want to continue the conversation the nation needs to have on how our national savings policy can help drive home ownership, especially in retirement.

Renting is a good choice for some Australians but I don’t want it to become a mandatory design feature of our retirement system.

I am concerned the growing trend of retired renters will change the economic and social character of the nation.

I approach this task as a proud Liberal, bound by the knowledge that individuals make the best decisions, not the government.

When Labor looks at national savings policy, it views opportunities for certain major investors to become corporate landlords. It simultaneously seeks to cut away opportunities for individuals to own a home.

Their dislike for individual investors exceeds their interest in building homes. Their decisions to ban SMSF borrowing, ruin negative gearing and hike capital gains tax is evidence enough.

The debate on national savings and housing has been hollowed out and cheapened over the past decade by vested interests and a lack of vision across the pillars.

Look at how Treasurer Jim Chalmers reacted to the suggestion that we should look at whether the retirement system is working as well as it should.

He tried to raise donations for the Labor Party on the back of a scare campaign which was beneath the Office of the Treasurer.

Ironically, Labor themselves have a policy on enabling super to be used for housing as part of the voluntary first home super saver scheme, where you can already withdraw up to $50,000 of super for a home deposit.

If you go back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a robust debate about our national savings policy.

Housing was always part of this discussion.

Back in 1993, Paul Keating himself proposed a policy where $10,000 could be taken from superannuation for a first home deposit.

His policy said “for most people, a debt free home is as important a part of retirement security as superannuation income.”

The architect of compulsory superannuation was right that home ownership should be part of the system.

In later years, Mr Keating has lost his imagination.

He now subscribes to the groupthink position that super preservation until 60 years of age is a sacred cow which can never be discussed, reviewed or reformed.

This flies in the face of immense change in the nation since he left office in 1996.

In 2024-25, some 32% of super lump sum payments were used to pay off mortgages, according to the ABS. This is a giant amount of money which raises questions about the cohesion of our savings, housing and retirement policy.

Principles for a sensible debate

That's why I want to talk to you about how we can build on the national savings debates of the 1980s with a few core principles.

Firstly, we should look to build, not tear down. This means adding more choice and more options for Australians as they navigate a new landscape of a 12% Superannuation Guarantee and the highest investment taxes on private savings in living memory.

Secondly, we should be clear our objective is home ownership - and it transcends any other.

Thirdly, we should look at the data objectively, not through the prism sought by vested interests who stand to gain from fee income. We must do all we can to drive up rates of home ownership as we also seek to fix the broken Budget.

Fourthly, we should call out inconsistency and incoherence. How can some housing be good but other housing be bad just because of the profile of the investor? Surely we just need more housing.

Fifth, policy must factor in the big changes since 1992, when superannuation started, such as the fact that it was assumed that most people would own a home in retirement. That is not assured today. It is even less assured in the future.

The idea that we are stuck with the exact design features of the current system and there is no possible way to improve it is incredibly lazy thinking and exemplifies the frustration Australians have about their leaders.

This is the debate Labor is afraid of - but it’s a debate that won’t go away. The trend is clear.

2022 - 2025 policy

At the 2022 election, the Coalition offered a policy which allowed Australians to withdraw $50,000 of their own superannuation for a first home deposit.

This policy was readopted after the 2022 election, and taken to the 2025 election.

The idea was simple. It is your money and if you want to buy a house, you can.

The Labor Party had long dropped Paul Keating’s initial support for super for housing and mounted a scare campaign on house prices.

Ironically, they ran this campaign at the same election where they uncapped the 5% deposit scheme and abolished means testing.

That 5% policy wasn’t even modelled when announced.

After the election, Labor modelled their new scheme. They were apparently told by the Treasury it could lift prices by 0.6% over 6 years but Cotality data showed it spiked prices by 6.7% in 6 months, for properties affected by the scheme!

If they were really worried about this then they wouldn’t have deployed a non means-tested government free-for-all demand-side policy.

In addition, as per the Senate Reports into Improving consumer experiences, choice, and outcomes in Australia’s retirement system, the Grattan Institute highlighted the relatively small effect that access to superannuation would have on the housing market, given the size of that market, saying that such policies would result in “a small share of that in additional demand.”

The flimsy proposition on price spikes was consistent with their next claim that people would be “raiding” their super. How do you raid your own money?

Another, perhaps more credible critique, was that some people don’t have $50,000 in super. It is generally more likely to be people in their mid to late 30s who accrue that amount, so the policy wouldn’t have helped many Australians under that age in the immediate term.

In short, Labor was against the policy for these publicly stated reasons. I suspect they also had a number of political reasons as well.

The big super funds provide some $40 million to Labor affiliated unions a year in payments and the boards serve as a retirement home for union officials and Labor MPs.

Corporate housing

Over this same period, the Labor Party got into the business of helping major super funds into corporate homeownership.

They have shovelled billions from the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), passed “Build to Rent” tax cuts and made the corporate regulator ASIC relax the investment disclosure rules.

When Labor framed its National Housing Accord back in 2022 they specifically said they wanted to “incentivise superannuation funds and other institutional investors to make investments in social and affordable housing.”

And in 2025 Jim Chalmers said he wanted to “make it easier for superannuation funds to invest in the housing that our communities desperately need.”

The HAFF gave $2 billion in its first tender to a super fund owned developer - the biggest single payment.

Jim Chalmers had the corporate cop ASIC change the regulatory guidance - RG 97 to help big funds cover up stamp duty costs when they buy homes.

Labor also passed Build to Rent tax cuts to help institutions finance and own homes Australians will never own.

Of course, the superannuation funds were also carved out from the horror 2026-27 Budget changes which impose the OECD’s highest capital gain taxes.

For the same investment, say a purchase of an existing investment property, super funds pay 10%, but individual Australians pay a minimum of 30% and up to 47%.

What’s more, Build to Rent arrangements were also exempted from the CGT tax hikes in the Budget and retain their favourable tax treatment, as “targeted exemptions for build-to-rent developments.”

And Anthony Albanese has recently again taken to calling super a national asset, “that can be used more appropriately and get better returns as well, not just for individuals and for retirees, but for the nation.”

The cherry on top here was the ban on the SMSF sector from borrowing to invest in housing.

Labor has gone out of its way to help big funds invest, build and own housing. They have gone out of their way to stop people from doing the same thing.

As early as 2022, there were warnings, including from Grattan’s Brendan Coates, that it was a fraught idea to direct super funds specifically into social and affordable housing, saying: “superannuation funds’ core objective is simple: maximising returns for their members.”

Getting return-hungry super funds to finance social housing while maximising returns would surely require some sort of support or subsidy by governments or taxpayers.

For the record, I don’t have a problem with any form of new housing but it doesn’t make sense to stop any form of housing just because you don’t like the investor.

The deliberate design feature in the Budget to cut housing supply by 35,000 over 10 years is due to higher housing taxes.

In addition, at least 4,000 SMSF property transactions would be jeopardised each year according to the Government’s own numbers due to its SMSF ban, while industry says it’s much higher and 16,000 each year. This only makes the supply crisis worse.

No one wins from this socialist approach - except perhaps the union super fund managers and the Labor political machine. Ultimately, fewer houses get built, they are more expensive, and the returns to Australians’ super can suffer.

For example, in the latest August 2026 results, 11 super products failed the APRA super performance test. One of them was a CFMEU backed construction super fund in Queensland with almost $7.5 billion in retirement savings.

The bottom line is that this model has failed to deliver desperately needed housing supply for Australians. The HAFF with all their taxpayer money transfers to super funds, has failed to actually build many new houses.

Australians were promised 40,000 social and affordable homes. Instead, the Auditor-General confirmed in July that, after almost 3 years: “1,432 homes of the 40,000 target have been built.

Of these, 762 were new homes constructed by housing providers and 670 were…purchased.” Treasury has also repeatedly advised Labor that “the delivery targets under the HAFF were unlikely to be met”, and that the 40,000 target is rated as “high” risk.

On page 294 of the 2026-27 Treasury Portfolio Budget Statements, it is clearly stated that the HAFF built “Nil” homes in the entire 2025-26 financial year, and that Labor’s social and affordable target was “at risk.”

As I’ve said before, the fiscal sustainability argument for super is fraught. The Intergenerational Report (IGR) shows age pension spending has been reasonably stable at some 2% as a share of GDP over the past 26 years.

It is expected to remain at slightly under 2% by 2066according to the latest 2026 IGR. However, the IGR makes some heroic assumptions, holding productivity growth at 1.2% by switching to a 30-year average. Had it kept the 20-year average, productivity and GDP would be lower, and spending would perhaps be higher as a share of GDP.

Meanwhile, superannuation tax concessions as a share of GDP are now projected to overtake age pension spending in the late 2030s, sooner than the 2023 IGR, which had this happening in the 2040s. Page 246 of the 2026 IGR states: “Superannuation tax concessions as a proportion of GDP are projected to increase from around 1.7 per cent in 2025–26 to 2.7 per cent in 2065–66, driven by earnings tax concessions. The value of revenue forgone from superannuation tax concessions is projected to overtake expenditure on the age pension in the late 2030s.” So taxpayers will be left footing the bill either way.

The priorities

At retirement, Australians are best served by, in order of priority:

1. owning a residence outright; and
2. owning financial assets from which they can draw an income to replace or supplement the Age Pension.

The generation of Australians aged 20 to 60 are now saving 12% of their income into superannuation to provide (or even over-provide) for priority (2).

Market circumstances (exacerbated by government policy) are making it harder to meet priority (1) - their income is constrained due to super contributions, and house prices inflated due to market dislocation.

If Australians can reorient some of their super savings early in life (for example, a loan from super for residence), they can optimise their objectives. In effect, rebalancing savings between the two objectives.

There have been a number of Senate Reports into these issues such as the Improving consumer experiences, choice, and outcomes in Australia’s retirement system.

To be clear, none of these ideas are our policy but, we are keeping an open mind, and they are options worthy of a debate in a country like Australia.

Why reform - to help the “forever renters”

As the 2020 Retirement Income Review said, a house is more than a home: “it’s that you have somewhere to live without having to pay market rent.”

The review found that “the home is the most important component of voluntary savings and is an important factor influencing retirement outcomes and how people feel about retirement.”

The 2026 IGR also states: “Outright homeowners benefit from lower housing costs through avoided rental payments and can draw on housing wealth to support living standards in retirement. By contrast, retiree renters face substantially higher housing cost pressures and poverty rates.”

That’s why we want to help people like Jo-Anne Allen from Newcastle who faces an uncertain retirement as a renter.

Ms Allen might be a forever renter. As she told the ABC: “While I am working, I’m secure… but it will get to a point where I can’t work anymore.”

This is the point. The 1992 system assumed people like Ms Allen would own a home.

The trend here is very worrying.

From 2003 to 2024, the share of retirees living in rentals doubled to 12% from 6%, according to the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey and the 2026 IGR, with experts saying it will rise further.

In May 2026, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) noted that by 2031, an estimated 440,000 older households will be unable to find or afford suitable housing.

AHURI also noted there were 640,970 lower income older renters in Australia in 2016, over 60% of whom were classed as retirement aged.

By 2032, this number is expected to increase to 839,123. AHURI said the solution to address this serious issue was to stop declining home ownership in retirement - noting that Australia’s housing system is ill-equipped to respond.

Forever renting is becoming one of the biggest trends in Australian housing.

More and more people will be retiring with decent super balances but will have to rent in retirement.

This blows out their standard of living and blows out the Budget with the massive increases we are now seeing in rent assistance costs. Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) is now around $7 billion a year and growing.

AHURI said that CRA eligibility among people aged 55+ is forecast to rise from 414,000 in 2016 to 664,000 by 2031 – a 60% increase. The cost to the Australian Government of providing CRA to this cohort is predicted to increase steeply.

More to the point, in the long-run returns across super, shares and property are broadly similar, as per leading economists.

And beyond this, there are socio-economic and psychological benefits of owning your own home. This includes the sense of security of home ownership and a path out of paying rent.

With the government now seeking a deliberate policy of reducing supply, rents will continue to rise - so the time is ripe for this debate.

Why should we live in a nation where big institutions own houses by virtue of government policy but people can’t use their own money to get a home or reduce their own mortgage?

We should apply some common sense as we evaluate these models. That is what we politicians are paid to do.

Giving people more choice and agency is commendable. For example, as the ABS has noted, during COVID, most people who accessed their superannuation early due to financial hardship caused by COVID-19, used it to pay their mortgage, rent or other household bills.

Further, 29% mainly used it to pay their mortgage or rent, while 27% used it for household bills. Another 15% used it to pay credit card or personal debts, while around one in eight people (13%) added it to their savings.

Common sense dictates that people should be allowed to make the best decisions for themselves and their families.

The Australian people are very frustrated that we don’t do enough of this sort of thinking.

At the end of the day, the housing crisis can only be solved with a supply side revolution. Australia needs to build its way out of the mess we are in.

I believe there remains a case for targeted demand side solutions like a less reckless 5% deposit scheme and some form of a super policy which promotes home ownership.

The super policy will always be a better solution because the money belongs to the individual, it is not the government’s money. The individual will respect their own money 1,000 times better than Anthony Albanese treats taxpayer funds.

Until he can explain why a couple earning over $600,000 need a free government housing guarantee then I don’t want to hear him say that “super for housing is bad.”

We are a great country and our public debates should be top class.

If it is good enough for Singapore, New Zealand and Canada with these similar super schemes to allow for housing, surely it's a debate we can have without scare campaigns and the soliciting of donations.

It is important to note that the ideas outlined here should be taken together in the context of a comprehensive package the Coalition has outlined to lift housing supply.

This includes making it easier and cheaper to build by: cutting back the National Construction Code; getting stalled housing projects moving again by investing in infrastructure like roads, water, power, and sewerage; linking housing to migration; and lower taxes aimed at lifting housing supply.

If we cannot be creative and bold, we should all find other things to do.