The Ghost of National Superannuation
Creators: name: Millane, Emily
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2020

description: The thesis uses the case study of Australian superannuation to examine the conditions for systemic policy change. It tells the history of a modern reform. Long-running debates about superannuation policy have led to the system that Australians know today. A narrative of superannuation emerges, showing that it was a product of long-term institutional continuities, more than existing narratives would suggest. The theory of historical institutionalism is brought to bear to argue that the introduction of Australia's national superannuation system was the evolution of a welfare system whose architecture was established around the time of Australian Federation. Occupational superannuation had existed in Australia since the 1840s, old age pension schemes were introduced in NSW, Victoria and Queensland in the 1890s, and the Commonwealth Old Age Pension was introduced in 1908. The thesis traces the history of debates about public pension financing and the eventual pivot towards Australia's unique state-mandated, private superannuation system based on defined contributions. Throughout this history, the thesis considers the cross-cutting themes of gender coverage, influences on policy makers and risk. The thesis is arranged around the points in time when the introduction of a national superannuation system was considered and legislated by Australian governments. It moves through the 1890s during the old age pension debates; the 1920s and the Royal Commission on National Insurance and National Insurance legislation introduced by the Bruce government; the 1930s and the National Health and Pensions Insurance Act, passed but never implemented by the Lyons government; the 1970s and the Whitlam government's proposal for national superannuation, and then, finally, the introduction of the modern system in 1992 under the Keating government's "Superannuation Guarantee." After years of opposition, following World War II the Australian Labor Party changed its policy to support contributory pensions. The policy rhetoric towards this change began after World War II. Occupational superannuation was radically reconceived and remodelled by labour reformers between the 1970s and the early 1990s, creating a new pathway of policy development and "layering" new elements so that the institution would serve a broad working constituency. During the term of the Hawke and Keating governments, there was a "critical juncture" in superannuation policy but incremental change was occurring too. This points to the limits of institutional theory, in which different modes of change are said to occur at different points in time. The history of superannuation policy is drawn into the present by looking at the period between the introduction of the Superannuation Guarantee in 1992 and 2019. It focuses on the changes in respect of "choice of fund," arguing that heavily politicised debates over choice over superannuation fund were the result of the decision to create a private system of superannuation. The Choice of Fund legislation in 2005 and the MySuper reforms in 2013 that deal with the choice of superannuation fund are examples of policy "layering" and "displacement," reflecting the power struggle between the Labor Party and the conservative parties to control financial flows in the system. This struggle was one which labour actors set themselves up for by establishing superannuation within an industrial framework debate rather than as a government scheme. Why does systemic policy change happen when it happens? Why does reform go in one direction rather than another? Why do political parties introduce policies that their predecessors opposed in the past? These are the fundamental questions with which this thesis grapples.