Australia’s union movement is joining forces for a campaign against One Nation and the Liberals over compulsory superannuation, opening what Labor believes could become one of the defining battles of the next federal election.
The campaign carries a deliberately simple message:
“Hands off our super.”
Major unions plan to keep the campaign running through to the 2028 federal election as an increasingly fierce argument erupts over who should control Australia’s enormous pool of retirement savings and when workers should be allowed to use their money.
The political stakes are substantial.
Australia’s superannuation system is now worth about $4.5 trillion, according to federal government figures, making it one of the largest pools of retirement capital in the world.
And Treasurer Jim Chalmers is warning voters that its compulsory foundations are under attack.
Unions mobilise for a three-year political fight
The Australian Council of Trade Unions and several major affiliates are preparing to campaign against proposals they believe would undermine Australia’s compulsory retirement system.
ACTU Assistant Secretary Joseph Mitchell said the campaign would continue until the next federal election in 2028.
The union movement’s argument is that compulsory super has transformed retirement for ordinary workers who historically had little or no access to occupational retirement savings.
It fears that weakening compulsory contributions or allowing much broader early access would gradually undermine that achievement.
For unions, this is not merely another financial-policy debate.
They regard superannuation as deferred wages accumulated over a working lifetime.
Nurses, midwives and care workers join the fight
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation federal secretary Annie Butler has described attempts to dismantle compulsory super as a direct threat to the retirement security of nurses, midwives and care workers.
These occupations are likely to feature prominently in the union campaign.
Many workers in caring professions spend decades in demanding jobs and rely heavily on compulsory super to build retirement savings.
The union argument is straightforward: workers who spend their lives looking after other Australians should be able to finish their careers knowing decades of compulsory contributions will provide financial security when they retire.
The Australian Workers’ Union has adopted a similarly uncompromising position.
National Secretary Paul Farrow has described calls to abolish compulsory super as an attack on the economic security of working families.
Andrew Bragg helped ignite the confrontation
The union mobilisation follows increasingly forceful criticism of compulsory super from Liberal senator Andrew Bragg.
Bragg has described Australia’s compulsory superannuation system as one of the country’s biggest public-policy failures since Federation.
He argues it has failed to deliver sufficiently on two of its central promises: improving the federal budget position and substantially reducing reliance on the Age Pension.
But his criticism goes beyond whether the system has delivered good economic outcomes.
He objects to compulsion itself.
Bragg has called compulsory super a “loss of liberty”.
His argument is that forcing employers to direct the equivalent of 12 per cent of workers’ earnings into retirement funds denies Australians control over a significant portion of their remuneration.
Then came the ‘cats and dogs’ remark
Bragg further angered unions while attacking the extension of superannuation entitlements to younger workers.
He joked that Australia was moving towards having “super for cats and dogs”.
The ACTU seized on the comment, arguing young Australians who work are entitled to superannuation just as adult workers are.
But the exchange revealed a much bigger philosophical disagreement.
Should superannuation be treated primarily as a compulsory social-policy system, or as an individual’s money over which they should exercise greater immediate control?
That question now stretches well beyond Bragg.
Pauline Hanson is challenging the system from another direction
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has also become a central figure in the super debate.
Her position is not identical to Bragg’s.
Hanson has questioned whether compulsory super is working as originally intended and has argued Australians struggling with immediate financial pressures should have greater access to their own savings.
Her central argument is politically powerful because of its simplicity.
“It is their money.”
Hanson says Australians struggling to pay mortgages and everyday bills can have substantial amounts locked inside super accounts while simultaneously facing financial hardship.
She has questioned whether that makes sense.
One Nation wants greater access during financial crises
Hanson argues superannuation rules should be loosened so Australians can access more of their savings in genuine times of need.
Barnaby Joyce has advanced a similar argument.
He has pointed to Australians who cannot afford basic living costs and questioned why they should be prevented from using money accumulated in their own names.
Existing rules already permit early access to super in limited circumstances.
These include severe financial hardship and specified compassionate grounds, as well as terminal illness and incapacity.
But the threshold is deliberately high.
One Nation’s emerging position is that Australians should have greater flexibility than the current system provides.
Housing is becoming a central part of the argument
Hanson has also backed allowing Australians to use superannuation towards buying their own home.
Under proposals she has previously supported, a person could use part of their super towards their principal residence, with an appropriate share of proceeds returned to super when the property was sold.
The argument appeals directly to younger Australians who may have tens of thousands of dollars accumulated in super while struggling for years to save a housing deposit.
Supporters say a home is itself an important retirement asset.
They argue allowing somebody to convert part of their super into home equity does not necessarily mean the money has simply been consumed.
Critics warn the policy could have the opposite effect.
If buyers suddenly have more money available while housing supply remains constrained, additional purchasing power could flow into higher property prices.
Labor sees an electoral opportunity
Chalmers has responded to the debate with some of Labor’s strongest language yet.
The Treasurer argues the positions emerging from One Nation and sections of the Liberal Party represent the greatest threat to Australia’s super system in four decades.
He has warned that a future government involving some combination of the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation could “end compulsory super for workers”.
Labor wants voters to see the next federal election as a choice over whether the existing compulsory system survives.
But that claim requires an important qualification.
There is currently no single jointly announced Liberal–National–One Nation policy to abolish compulsory superannuation.
Chalmers is drawing together comments and proposals from political figures and presenting their combined direction as a threat to the system.
That is a political argument Labor intends to take to the electorate, rather than an agreed opposition policy that has already been formally adopted.
Hanson says Labor is misrepresenting her
The One Nation leader has rejected the claim that her position can simply be reduced to abolishing Australians’ retirement savings.
She argues her priority is reforming a system she believes has become too restrictive.
Her position is that Australians should have more control over when and how their money is used, particularly when facing housing or severe cost-of-living pressures.
That distinction is likely to become central to the 2028 contest.
Labor will say One Nation threatens retirement savings.
One Nation will say Labor does not trust Australians with their own money.
Why compulsory super exists in the first place
Australia’s compulsory Superannuation Guarantee was introduced nationally in 1992.
Its underlying logic is relatively simple.
Australians accumulate retirement savings throughout their working lives rather than relying entirely on voluntary saving or the taxpayer-funded Age Pension.
The compulsory contribution rate has progressively increased and now stands at 12 per cent.
The money is invested over decades, allowing returns to compound.
That compounding is one reason supporters are so resistant to widespread early withdrawals.
A dollar removed today can mean several dollars missing later
Taking money from super at 30 does not simply reduce a person’s retirement balance by the amount withdrawn.
That money also loses decades of potential investment returns.
The younger the worker, the longer the lost compounding period can be.
This became a major issue during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Morrison government temporarily allowed eligible Australians experiencing financial hardship to withdraw super early.
The policy delivered immediate relief to households.
It also produced warnings that younger Australians who emptied or substantially reduced accounts could retire with significantly less.
That experience now hangs over proposals to expand early access permanently.
But today’s cost-of-living crisis complicates the argument
The preservation principle is easiest to defend when households can meet their immediate expenses.
It becomes harder when Australians are struggling to pay rent, service mortgages or cover medical bills while substantial savings remain locked away.
Recent ATO data cited in reporting on the debate shows about 93,500 applications for compassionate release were made under the medical-treatment category, with around $1.4 billion approved for early release.
About one in three applications was rejected.
Those numbers demonstrate why the political question is gaining traction.
Australians can simultaneously possess retirement wealth and experience financial hardship.
Unions say that does not justify dismantling preservation
The union movement argues today’s financial hardship should be addressed through wages, housing policy, healthcare and an adequate social safety net rather than by encouraging workers to spend their future retirement savings.
Its concern is that expanded access could become a pressure valve for failures elsewhere in the economy.
If housing becomes unaffordable, use super.
If medical bills become unaffordable, use super.
If incomes cannot cover essential expenses, use super.
Unions argue that approach can leave workers poorer in retirement while avoiding the underlying causes of their financial problems.
There is also a cost to taxpayers
Australians who reach retirement with insufficient savings can become more reliant on the Age Pension.
That means allowing workers to consume more super today can potentially increase government expenditure decades later.
Supporters of compulsory preservation therefore argue super serves both an individual and a fiscal purpose.
It builds private retirement assets while reducing reliance on publicly funded retirement income.
Bragg disputes how successfully the system has achieved the second objective.
That disagreement is one reason his critique goes much further than Hanson’s argument for additional flexibility.
Australia now has $4.5 trillion riding on the system
The scale of superannuation today bears little resemblance to the system established three decades ago.
Federal government material in 2026 puts Australia’s superannuation pool at approximately $4.5 trillion.
The government describes it as the fourth-largest retirement pool in the world.
Super funds now own Australian and international equities, property, infrastructure, bonds and a wide range of private investments.
The system has consequently become important not only to individual retirement but to Australia’s entire financial architecture.
Changing its rules can have consequences extending far beyond individual account balances.
That scale creates another argument over control
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government have talked about Australia’s super pool as an important national economic asset capable of supporting productive investment while generating returns for members.
The government wants Australian institutional capital playing a greater role in areas including infrastructure, housing and energy.
Critics become uncomfortable when politicians talk about privately owned retirement savings in national-policy terms.
They insist the sole purpose of super investment should be maximising appropriate risk-adjusted returns for members rather than advancing a government’s preferred projects.
That makes the phrase “hands off our super” politically interesting.
Both sides can claim it.
For unions, ‘hands off’ means don’t dismantle compulsory super
The union interpretation is rooted in the history of the system.
Workers and unions fought for universal superannuation so retirement security would not remain predominantly available to wealthier Australians and workers with generous occupational schemes.
Compulsory contributions ensured people accumulated savings even if they could not afford to make voluntary contributions.
Preservation protected those savings from being consumed during a person’s working life.
For unions, protecting workers’ ownership therefore means protecting the system that ensures the money remains available when those workers retire.
For Hanson, ‘hands off’ can mean something almost opposite
If the money belongs to the individual, One Nation asks why government should determine when that individual is allowed to use it.
Someone facing foreclosure may value keeping their home more highly than preserving a larger super balance.
A young Australian locked out of home ownership may prefer to invest part of their retirement savings in a principal residence.
A person facing severe financial hardship may believe their money is more valuable today than decades from now.
The philosophical disagreement is therefore not necessarily over who owns super.
Both sides say workers do.
They disagree profoundly over what that ownership should permit.
Andrew Bragg adds a third argument
The Liberal senator asks an even more fundamental question.
Why should the contribution be compulsory in the first place?
If workers own their remuneration, Bragg’s argument follows that government should have to justify forcing 12 per cent of it into a particular form of long-term saving.
Supporters of the system respond that compulsory saving solves a problem voluntary systems historically failed to solve: millions of Australians otherwise reach retirement without sufficient assets.
That is why Bragg’s intervention has alarmed unions more than an ordinary debate about early access.
He is questioning the architecture itself.
The Liberal leadership now has a difficult political decision
Bragg’s views are not automatically Liberal Party policy.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor must determine how much of the argument the Coalition ultimately embraces.
A formal commitment to abolish universal compulsory super would give Labor and unions precisely the election contest they are preparing for.
But rejecting every proposal for greater flexibility could also surrender politically valuable territory to One Nation.
Australians under severe cost-of-living and housing pressure may be receptive to arguments for more control over their savings.
The Coalition therefore has to navigate between reform and abolition.
One Nation poses a different electoral challenge
Hanson does not need to persuade Australians that superannuation itself is bad.
She can instead ask whether its rules have become too rigid.
That allows One Nation to appeal simultaneously to economic populism and personal ownership.
The message fits neatly with the party’s broader pitch to voters who believe large institutions exercise too much control over their lives.
For Labor and unions, that makes Hanson potentially more difficult to attack than a straightforward proposal to abolish super.
They have to defend not only compulsory contributions but restrictions on access to people’s own savings.
Housing may decide which argument wins
The strongest challenge to preservation is likely to come from Australians locked out of the property market.
A person can reach their 30s with a substantial super balance but little prospect of accumulating a deposit while paying high rent.
For that person, being told their super will help them decades later can be less persuasive than being allowed to use it to acquire a home now.
Opponents of super-for-housing schemes counter that increasing purchasing power without increasing housing supply can simply increase prices.
The result could leave future buyers needing even larger deposits.
Both arguments will become increasingly important if housing affordability remains poor heading towards 2028.
Younger workers will be at the centre of the campaign
The generational politics are particularly complicated.
Young Australians potentially benefit most from decades of compound investment returns.
They also face some of the greatest barriers to entering the housing market.
They therefore have the most to gain from leaving super untouched — and perhaps the strongest immediate incentive to access it.
That tension cannot be resolved with a campaign slogan.
It requires voters to make a judgment about the relative value of financial security today and retirement wealth tomorrow.
Women will also be central to the union case
Women have historically retired with lower super balances because of factors including lower average earnings and time away from paid employment for caring responsibilities.
That is one reason nursing, midwifery and care-sector unions are taking such a prominent role.
They fear a less compulsory system could disproportionately disadvantage workers whose ability to make voluntary contributions is already limited.
Labor has also expanded super coverage through measures including superannuation on government-funded Paid Parental Leave.
Unions will use those reforms to argue the system should become more universal, not less.
But Labor enters this fight with vulnerabilities of its own
The government is simultaneously facing scrutiny over taxation and investment rules affecting superannuation.
That gives its opponents an obvious response to the “hands off our super” slogan.
If Labor says retirement savings belong to workers, critics will ask why government should alter their taxation or encourage funds towards particular forms of investment.
Labor’s answer is that preserving compulsory super, setting fair tax rules and encouraging productive investment are separate policy questions.
Whether voters accept that distinction will matter.
The political battle is already being framed in dramatically different ways
Labor and unions want the question to be:
Who will protect your retirement?
One Nation wants it to be:
Who should control your money?
Bragg’s critique introduces another:
Should government force you to save 12 per cent in the first place?
Those three questions overlap, but they are not interchangeable.
That is why claims that one side simply wants to “destroy super” or another wants government to “take workers’ money” require careful scrutiny.
The campaign will run for years
The next federal election is not imminent.
That is precisely what makes the union decision significant.
Rather than waiting for the formal campaign, unions intend to spend the intervening period establishing compulsory super as a political dividing line.
The objective is familiar from successful campaigns over industrial relations and Medicare.
Define a popular institution.
Convince voters it is threatened.
Then force political opponents to defend every proposed change against that frame.
“Hands off our super” is designed to do exactly that.
But One Nation has a slogan every bit as simple
Its counterargument can be reduced to four words.
“It’s your money.”
That is why the super fight has the potential to become politically potent.
Both sides claim to be defending workers against somebody else controlling their savings.
Unions say workers need protection from politicians who would weaken compulsory super and leave them poorer in retirement.
One Nation says workers need protection from a system that prevents them using their own savings when they need them most.
Bragg questions why the state should compel the saving at all.
The 2028 election could decide much more than a contribution rate
Australia is heading towards a much broader argument about the purpose of superannuation.
Is it primarily retirement income?
Is it private wealth?
Can it reasonably be used to acquire a home?
How much should Australians be permitted to withdraw during hardship?
Should contributions remain universally compulsory?
And how much influence should governments have over a $4.5 trillion pool of privately owned retirement capital?
Those questions are now moving from policy seminars into electoral politics.
Australia’s unions have already chosen their side.
They intend to campaign until 2028 to defend compulsory superannuation.
Labor is preparing to make the issue a referendum on retirement security.
One Nation is making the case for greater personal control.
And the Liberal Party will have to decide whether Andrew Bragg’s challenge to compulsory super represents an individual intervention or the beginning of a much larger policy shift.
With approximately $4.5 trillion accumulated inside the system, few economic fights could have more money — or more Australian voters — riding on the outcome.
