Professorial Lecture: The political economy of superannuation in Australia

Professorial Lecture
The political economy of superannuation in Australia
Prof Rhonda Sharp, Professor of Economics, HRISS

Since the early 1990s, superannuation has been promoted by successive governments as the pathway to better retirement incomes for all Australians. But is this the case? Making superannuation the main form of retirement income savings has had a number of consequences. One has been the development of a large and powerful private funds industry with assets over 1 trillion dollars. Another has been to impose an annual cost to the federal government budget in the form of revenue forgone in taxation concessions. Furthermore, shifting retirement funding to superannuation savings has had a different impact on different people. Women, because of their relatively lower lifetime earnings, tend to accumulate less superannuation while a small percentage of high income and asset holding men are favoured to avail themselves of the generous superannuation tax concessions.

This professorial lecture by Rhonda Sharp will draw on her research and scholarship in the area of public policy and its financing. Over the past decade she has examined how policy impacts differently on men and women and groups of men and women differentiated by socioeconomic status, race, age, sexuality and location. This lecture traces the rise of superannuation as a central component of Australia's retirement incomes policy and examines its gender- and class-based assumptions and impacts. It questions whether the policy changes announced in the 2006 federal budget will lead to better retirement incomes for all Australians.

Throughout her career Prof Sharp has been engaged in applying her knowledge to relevant social and economic problems. She has contributed to SA policy debates as a member of several government boards and committees, including the SA government's Task Force on Public Sector Superannuation (1987-90), and is a regular contributor to The State of South Australia. She is known internationally for her work on incorporating a gender perspective into policy and government budgets and has been an advisor to international agencies including the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Commonwealth Secretariat, AusAid, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the Asian Development Bank. She has advised governments in South Africa, Indonesia, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Korea, Sri Lanka and Barbados. In 2007 Professor Sharp was an invited member of the United Nations Expert Group on Financing Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment. Her publications include Budgeting for equity (UNIFEM, 2003); and with Ray Broomhill, Shortchanged: women and economic policies (Allen and Unwin, 1988).