The assault on limited recourse borrowing arrangements flagged in the draft amendment has been included in the budget but with a little more enthusiasm. The proposal was that the counting of the loan balance against a member’s total super balance would begin from the date of royal assent of the enabling legislation. The budget has moved that forward to 1 July 2017. More worrying is that the budget was not clear on the issue of retrospectivity. The proposed amendment stated that the measure would not be retrospective but the budget refers to the loan balance as at 1 July 2017. Morrison does not have a good record on retrospectivity so it remains to be seen. No doubt this matter will be clarified rather swiftly.

This amendment, at least the second part of it which treats debt as equity, deserves to be thrown out as it is unreasonable, unfair, unnecessary and unjustifiable but it just might get through in its entirety due to a lack of opposition – there will be no complaints from Labor.