PETER VAN ONSELEN: How Albo is about to cross a line with his superannuation meddling - as radical plan to merge it with Centrelink is exposed

By PETER VAN ONSELEN, POLITICAL EDITOR, AUSTRALIA Published: 15:24, 16 July 2026 | Updated: 15:28, 16 July 2026 Your browser does not support iframes. Australia's superannuation system, fast approaching $5 trillion in value, is one hell of a national achievement.  But it's not a national asset for the government to use and abuse as the PM now seemingly thinks. Albo needs to keep his grubby little hands off our super. The government is increasingly eager to treat our private retirement savings as their own money. Albo says he wants superannuation to be leveraged for domestic corporate lending, infrastructure spending, and other 'national priorities'. Paul Keating - who is the architect of compulsory super - has also weighed in. He wants to fuse parts of Centrelink's age pension with major super funds. Meanwhile, super executives are wringing their hands that retirees are drawing down only the statutory minimum. Taken together, these moves suggest a hostile takeover of the system's original intent is on Labor's agenda.  Super is no longer being treated as private retirement savings but is being eyed off as a convenient slush fund for an expanding collection of government problems. Paul Keating is reportedly pushing for Albanese to fuse parts of Centrelink's age pension with major superannuation funds  Keating is right that Australians shouldn't have to navigate endless pages of Centrelink paperwork just to obtain a pension that the government already knows they deserve.  Better data sharing and pre-filled applications are long overdue. But outsourcing the administration of public benefits to private super funds is a leap we need to think long and hard about before taking. Super funds manage private wealth and earn fees for doing so. They are not disinterested administrators of the welfare state.  Centrelink is broken, there is little doubt about that. But the answer is to fix it, not quietly privatise its functions to conflicted fund managers. The industry anxiety over retirees spending too little is equally misplaced. Fund executives are frustrated with members' fear of running out of money before they die. But being cautious with spending money isn't irrational.  It's a perfectly logical response to unknowable lifespans, looming health and aged-care costs, and a political class that constantly tinkers with retirement rules thus creating financial uncertainty. Successive governments have taught Australians that super policy is never settled, however much they claim that the latest tinkering is the last time. Furthermore, there is no mandate for a super balance to hit zero on the day its owner dies. If retirees want to preserve a buffer, leave an inheritance, or simply buy some extra peace of mind, that's their prerogative. It's their money after all. Once Canberra treats super as a sovereign wealth fund it has control over, there's no obvious end point as to how they might intervene. Above, Albanese and wife Jodie Haydon The most alarming rhetoric we are now hearing belongs to the Prime Minister. Albo's desire to leverage the super pool as a 'national asset' crosses a critical line. There is nothing wrong with funds investing in domestic infrastructure or housing, provided those investments are done on strict commercial grounds.  Such investments must attract capital by offering super members the best risk-adjusted returns, not simply because a minister has slapped a 'national priority' sticker on something they want done. If Labor wants more domestic investment, it should undertake the hard economic reforms required to make Australia an attractive place to deploy capital.  At the moment they are doing the opposite much of the time.  Compulsory retirement savings aren't an off-budget financing mechanism that can be used to mask a lack of policy courage within the political class. Besides, would anyone describe the likes of Albo and Treasurer Jim Chalmers as the sort of financial gurus you'd entrust with your life savings?  They can't even manage the Federal budget without letting it blow out across spending, debt and deficits. Super is no longer being treated as private retirement savings but is being eyed off as a convenient slush fund for an expanding collection of government problems, says Peter van Onselen Compulsory super rests on a fragile, implicit bargain that the government forces workers to lock away part of their wages for decades, and in return it promises that the money will be managed solely for the retirements of those forced to put aside a chunk of their pay packet each fortnight. Once Canberra treats super as a sovereign wealth fund it has control over, there's no obvious end point as to how they might intervene.  Today it's commercially credible infrastructure, tomorrow it's subsidised housing, favoured green energy projects, or diplomatic vanity projects, all conveniently wrapped in the rhetoric of the 'national interest'. Spare us the propaganda and spin designed to allow Albo and his cronies to get their hands on more of our hard-earned money. The Aussie super system is a national achievement, but the achievement belongs to the system, and the assets belong to all of us.  Simplifying pension access is a good idea. Better financial advice is sensible too.  But turning super funds into quasi-government agencies and conscripting private savings as instruments of public policy is a profound betrayal of everything other than pure socialism.