In a heated interview on ABC’s 7.30 this week, One Nation’s would-be treasurer Barnaby Joyce was unable to explain how much superannuation Australians would lose from their retirement under the party’s policy to allow early access.

Barnaby Joyce might be dumb, but he’s no idiot.

Joyce’s obfuscation on 7.30 and ABC’s AM will work well with his audience.

Most people hate journalists, and especially hate interviewers, so they are not going to mind him suggesting the questions were really just gotchas.

Unfortunately, it has been a very, very long while since any interview that caught out a politician actually had any worthwhile impact.

Joyce might not understand the velocity of money, but neither does anyone else. And to be honest, the entire concept of it on inflation is pretty disputed, so trying to argue against him on that score is a mug’s game.

The same goes for the One Nation and Coalition policy of letting people raid their super.

Anyone saying it will be inflationary is right. Anyone saying it will sentence mostly low-middle income people (and especially women) to a much poorer retirement is also right. Anyone saying people will raid their super is right.

This is a very dumb policy. The problem is people are hurting.

As I’ve written before, real wages took a god-almighty hit in 2022 and 2023, and in the past three years have not recovered.

So, arguing against One Nation by saying people should go without now so they can have more later is really not going to work politically. People are hurting now.

The problem is the policy won’t help them – it would lead to higher inflation and interest rates. Any “benefit” would quickly be wiped out.

It’s also a policy designed to be loved by businesses that are being let off the hook and essentially being told they don’t have to give anyone a wage rise, and that will likely argue against increasing wages because they will say employees can access super.

This would 100 per cent be used by businesses to argue against increases in award wages.

This entire thing really highlights the disgusting inequality baked into our political, media and economic system.

Remember last year, when the Albanese government sought to change tax on superannuation for funds with more than $3 million – you know, the roughly 0.1 per cent of all super funds?

That was blasted as a death tax, as a raid on inheritance, as communism. It was painted as evil, because “how dare you touch superannuation?”.

But that was because it was affecting the superannuation and the wealth of the very richest people in Australia, who use super to avoid paying tax.

This current argument won’t affect rich people, it will hurt only the retirements of low- and middle-income earners.

The problem with superannuation is not that it is locked away – that is why super is taxed lower than income. The problem is that the tax breaks so greatly favour the very wealthy.

When real wages take such a hit, the government should be doing what it can to alleviate the pain – obviously through stronger wage rises, but also through providing services that will help with the cost of living. Say, dental care.

In this current financial year, the richest 10 per cent (people whose income is over $162,000) will get around $22.5 billion in superannuation tax breaks.

By contrast, a very generous dental-in-Medicare scheme would cost $14.9 billion. That gives the government still around $8 billion to play with.

You want to counter One Nation? Don’t talk about velocity of money or how compound interest works over the course of your working life. No, address the issue – people are hurting, help them.

And if you think reducing tax concessions on super is not the way to do it, then tax gas and raise $17 billion and spend it on things that make people’s lives better.

Superannuation is rigged in favour of the wealthy – you won’t win a fight telling low- and middle-income earners that super is for them, when the entire system at the moment really is not.

This article first appeared in The Post. Read the original here.