![\"Shane](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788764417_388_057daa8f1b51682d1d002d4c2720328233762dc5.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Updated September 7, 2026 \u2014 3:23pm,first published 2:42pm<\/p>\n
Save<\/p>\n
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n
Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear what is worse about One Nation\u2019s plan to allow millions of Australians to dip into their superannuation \u2013 depriving people of future retirement income or adding to the nation\u2019s inflationary pressures right now.<\/p>\n No matter how Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce describe their policy as some sort of costless way to help people deal with their living expenses<\/a>, there will be a measurable cost in the near and long term.<\/p>\n As Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock has been at pains to explain for months, interest rates are being pushed up to curb the ability of Australians to spend<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yes, it\u2019s painful. People have to make tough spending decisions. But the alternative \u2013 high inflation that erodes wages and the nation\u2019s economic competitiveness \u2013 is infinitely worse.<\/p>\n So One Nation\u2019s idea to give potentially millions of people access to billions of dollars flies in the face of what the RBA is trying to achieve.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cInterest rates keep rising,\u201d Hanson noted while announcing her idea. If this policy ever found its way into operation, you can guarantee the Reserve Bank would have to push rates up even higher.<\/p>\n The purported income boost of $44 a week to a median full-time worker is worth about a half percentage point increase in interest rates on a $600,000 mortgage.<\/p>\n Hanson, who honestly worries about the people living in tents or cars, couldn\u2019t fathom these poor people \u2013 likely to be without a job and without super \u2013 would not only be unable to use her scheme, but the higher inflation would make their lives even harder.<\/p>\n Barnaby Joyce said the inflationary impact would be \u201cundetectable\u201d. He simply doesn\u2019t want to look.<\/p>\n Joyce also argues that people are \u201csmart\u201d when it comes to super. That flies in the face of the real-world experiment this country went through during the depths of the pandemic when the Morrison government allowed people to take up to $20,000 out of their superannuation accounts.<\/p>\n The government thought 1.5 million people would take out $27 billion to help deal with the economic troubles caused by the pandemic.<\/p>\n Instead, at least 2.6 million withdrew at least $40 billion. It became the second-largest stimulus measure during the COVID-lockdown years, contributing to the inflationary pulse that has plagued the country since.<\/p>\n People literally lied so they could get their hands on their super and go on a pandemic-era spending spree.<\/p>\n Independent research<\/a>, something that goes beyond the \u201cvibes\u201d that amount to policy development within One Nation, revealed where the program\u2019s money went.<\/p>\n At a time when cash usage crashed, there was a surge in withdrawals from ATMs<\/a>. The money went under a mattress or into the black economy.<\/p>\n Some of it was used to pay down debt. The third-largest increase during this period was on gambling.<\/p>\n People also lifted their spending on takeaway meals, furniture, buy-now-pay-later products and online retail.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also no coincidence that the cash was made available as the country started going through the biggest increase in house prices in a generation.<\/p>\n Related Article One of the authors of the research noted: \u201cThis evidence is just so powerful that a large subset of the population has difficulty making sound decisions for their long-term future \u2013 it\u2019s one of those cases where constraining people can make them better off. A sobering thought for an economist.\u201d<\/p>\n That economist was Steven Hamilton, a former Treasury official who is now a senior policy official within the office of Angus Taylor. He could have been talking about the One Nation brains trust that thought up its super policy.<\/p>\n All of this came at a cost of an estimated $120,000 in future retirement income for each person. Which brings you to the long-term costs of the policy.<\/p>\n \u201cYour existing super won\u2019t be touched. Not one dollar,\u201d declared Hanson.<\/p>\n Rubbish. If you don\u2019t put in as much super, even for three years, the long-term value of that super is eroded.<\/p>\n Under One Nation\u2019s own numbers, a person who takes $8000 to $9000 over the next three years will end up with at least $25,000 less in super when they come to retirement.<\/p>\n Superannuation was created in part because people are terrible at making long-term financial decisions. It was also put in place to take pressure off the federal budget and to ensure older Australians had dignity in retirement.<\/p>\n But One Nation\u2019s policy confirms that superannuation is fast becoming the magic pudding of Australian politics, that it can do anything and everything.<\/p>\n The parts of Sam Sawnoff and Bill Barnacle, the pudding owners imagined in the children\u2019s book by Norman Lindsay, are being played by Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce.<\/p>\n Also desiring a bite are many Coalition MPs, who still want to allow people to access their super to buy a home in a policy that would bid up the price of housing while delivering an international wealth transfer from the young to the old.<\/p>\n Not that the Labor Party doesn\u2019t want a slice. It has been talking for years about encouraging super funds to invest in some of its pet concerns, from renewable energy to the housing sector.<\/p>\n The economic problems of this country are deep and broad. There aren\u2019t easy solutions. They require tough choices.<\/p>\n And, like populists throughout time, One Nation has come up with a policy that would just make things worse \u2013 now and well into the future.<\/p>\n Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Barnaby](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4d15731b96f1863857db33326232df2e747784e3.jpeg\")
Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson are making a populist argument on cost of living.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n![\"Barnaby](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2983bc37af9633ddb8ad9be34bb39f9f5a1bfb04.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Australian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/a939453bbc9adbfde65c6acaabff05e68f7ab85c.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Shane](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788764419_347_057daa8f1b51682d1d002d4c2720328233762dc5.png\")
Shane Wright<\/a> is a senior economics correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated September 7, 2026 \u2014 3:23pm,first published 2:42pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21],"class_list":["post-89929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}