Should you be able to access your super before retirement? One Nation says yes, and its own modelling puts the figure at $44 a week. Accountant Pete Burrows and Ben McEachen weigh that against what it costs later: around $25,000 forgone, a one-time window you can never use twice, and billions of dollars flowing into an already stretched housing market. Ben argues we're adults who can be trusted with our own money. Pete has watched clients treat early super access like an ATM. Two fair cases, and one answer.

Key Takeaways

• Super is already accessible, but only just. Compassionate grounds, serious illness or six months on Centrelink. The proposal's real change is widening that gate, not creating access where none existed.
• The trade is $44 a week now against roughly $25,000 later. Pete's test is the practical one: before you touch super, is there a pay rise, a tax refund or a cost saving that gets you to the same place?
• The discipline is the product. Super works partly because you cannot get at it. Take the money out and it is spent. Leave it and it compounds for twenty or thirty years.
• Covid is the precedent nobody planned for. Two financial years of early access, and by Pete's account a minority used it well while many treated it as an ATM.
• Putting super into housing may not help housing. Billions moving out of retirement savings and into rent and mortgages could push prices up for everyone, including the people the policy is meant to help.
• It is a one-shot, and the design has gaps. Three years, once in a working life. It does not appear to be means tested, and the tax treatment could favour people who least need it.

Notable Quotes

1. "Only in exceptional circumstances should you be accessing your super before retirement." — Pete Burrows
2. "My question would be, is the $44 a week worth it now versus what you could lose?" — Pete Burrows
3. "It was like an ATM. They wanted it. At the moment, that's what the ATM stood for. I want the money now." — Pete Burrows
4. "The one nation proposal is also indicating that we're adults and we can make decisions about our own money." — Ben McEachen
5. "If you didn't really need it, has it just poured more fuel on the housing fire by throwing more money at housing?" — Pete Burrows
6. "You take out three grand, five grand from your super today, that money's spent and gone." — Pete Burrows