ACCI slams timing of super increases

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI)  has criticised the timing of the increase in superannuation contributions, but Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten insists a lift from 9% to 12% is “not a tax on employers”.

“We see this as very poorly timed,” the ACCI’s director of economic and industry policy, Greg Evans, told reporters in Sydney.

“We’re seeing a number of new taxes including the carbon tax.”

Shorten says the increase is being phased in over seven years. The first increase will be to 9.25% in 2013.

“This means employees and employers have time to adjust and take the increase into account in future wage negotiations,” Shorten wrote in The Australian.

However, the Opposition dispute that position. Workplace relations spokesman Eric Abetz said the government could no longer pretend that the superannuation increase would be funded by the new mining tax.

“Bill Shorten has finally acknowledged that the increase (in superannuation) … will be paid by foregone wages of Australian workers who are already struggling to make ends meet,” Abetz told reporters in Canberra.

Labor senator Doug Cameron says workers will be $100,000 better off when they retire.

“I’m sure that over the period of time that this is being phased in, employers in this country can handle (the increase) easily,” Cameron says.