ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The unsinkable Barnaby Joyce is coming into bat for Australians who want access to their money so they can buy things they need now like new cars, cryptocurrency, property and ice cold schooners of Tooheys New.
As the pandemic comes to an end for healthy young people, the Federal Government is looking to close the program that saw Australians ransack their superannuation balance to the tune of $38bn.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has told press in Canberra today that retirement savings should exactly for that – retirement.
“The previous government put a lot of families between a rock and their super during the pandemic and for those who had to withdraw the money, it was a shame but because the didn’t have anything left to fall back on, it had to be done. It was a failure of policy,” said Mr Chalmers.
“If you raided your super to buy a new car or have a punt on Dogecoin, you either have a weapon inheritance coming or you have ants on your brain.”
However, bush libertarian Barnaby Joyce quoted Henry Lawson in Tamworth this morning to add context before adding his own quixotic layer.
“It is quite time that our children were taught a little more about their country, for shame’s sake,” said Joyce.
“It’s a shame that a man, or a woman, can work for ten, twenty years and have all this money taken out of their pay packet, like a little mouse chewing its way through a bag of wheat, and not have a chance to access that money until they’re ten years older than a bloke like me,” he said.
“Australians should be able to raid their super to buy the things they need. If they want to rip $40 000 out and buy a Jeep Compass, that’s their prerogative. Who am I to judge? You can take money out to go to Yamba and drink cold schooners of Tooheys New at the Pacific,”
“So I will fight for that right. If you want to buy a Jeep Compass with your super then go ahead. They might be collectable one day.”
More to come.
