Prime Minister Tony Abbott has brushed aside questions about what changes, if any, the federal government was considering making to superannuation before the budget.
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But Labor treasury spokesman Chris Bowen says four documents obtained under freedom of information laws by the opposition clearly demonstrate super tax concession changes had been considered.
The documents, which do not detail the options considered as they were considered by a committee of cabinet, do confirm that four pieces of advice were provided to Treasurer Joe Hockey by his department.
The four pieces of advice were all provided this year, on January 29, March 6, April 21 and April 22.
In explaining the decision not to release the details of the documents, the FOI decision maker said all the documents were deliberative in nature and contained preliminary examination of possible policy options for the 2015-16 budget and as such, were conditionally exempt under the FOI Act.
On April 22, Labor announced a new policy that would see superannuation tax concessions for the wealthy wound back under a future ALP government. The changes would raise as much as $14 billion over 10 years.
Soon after, the federal government began to attack Labor's proposal and said it had no plans to change super tax concessions.
On Wednesday, Mr Abbott said the government had given a very clear commitment prior to the last election there would be "no adverse changes in superannuation under this government in this Parliament".
"We have made a very clear decision that we aren't ever going to increase the taxes on super, we aren't ever going to increase the restrictions on super because super belongs to the people. It's your money. It's not a piggy bank to be raided by government whenever it's short and that's the trouble with Labor.
Labor always treats your money as their cash reserve," he said.
However Mr Bowen said the documents showed the government changed its position in the dying days of budget preparation.
"Clearly there were four separate briefing notes here. What is absolutely the case is the Treasury can provide one briefing note but if the Treasury or government said we're not doing that, the Treasury would cease to provide advice on how to do it," he said.
"Four separate briefing notes means the government was seriously considering it.
"As a former treasurer and former assistant treasurer, I can tell you if the Treasurer said 'no, I don't want to consider this, I don't want to see more advice on this', then it wouldn't be provided. Clearly the government was saying to the Treasury, 'Give us more advice'."
But Acting Treasurer Bruce Billson told Fairfax Media that Mr Bowen had misread the policy formulation process.
" We are fortunate to have able officials in our department who routinely bring forward advice and proposals that we are able to consider. Our job is to determine what to do about those inputs," he said.
" In the case of super, our position has been clear and consistent, that being no unexpected adverse changes."
