Shorten says super increase at risk as Bob Brown sees red over company tax cuts

The Greens might stand in the way of Labor’s plans to increase compulsory superannuation payments to 12%, after leader Bob Brown threatened to block parts of the Government’s mining tax plans, including a plan to cut company tax by 1% to 29%.

Shannon Walker, a spokesman for Bill Shorten, says while the Government is committed to the increase in the superannuation guarantee from 9% to 12%, there is “no guarantee” it will proceed because Labor does not have a majority in either house of Parliament.

Under the Government’s plans, to be paid for by the controversial mineral resource rent tax, increases in superannuation levels will kick off in 2014, with a 12% compulsory level sought by 2020.

Greens leader Bob Brown this morning criticised the Government’s plans for a 1% cut in the company rate to 29%, saying it should apply only to companies earning less than $250 million a year.

“That’s money that should be giving aged care workers a fair go, to establishing a national dental health care system, or for increasing the Newstart allowance, youth allowance, Austudy and Abstudy,” Brown told the ABC this morning.

“We won’t support the tax cut.”

Walker says while the Greens have not indicated they will block the mineral resource rent tax on the company tax cut issue alone, and the independent MPs have been making “positive noises” about the increase, Brown’s comments underline the difficulty of pushing through the change in the hung Parliament.

With the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees launching a campaign to have the increase put into legislation, Shorten’s office is calling on the superannuation industry to lobby the Coalition and key MPs – independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, as well as the Greens’ Adam Bandt – to push the changes through.

“The more talking about it [the increase], the better,” Walker said.