Op-ed

HESTA welcomes the Budget potentially providing significant cost of living relief to women and lower income earners, funding for a much needed 15% pay rise for aged care workers and measures to encourage green investment. While the Budget had a range of measures that could assist our members, we believe there needs to be an urgent stance to address long-standing super inequities that are seeing women miss out on billions in retirement savings.

The Budget missed an opportunity to appropriately boost business productivity, a critical tool in the inflation-busting toolkit. Reducing the cost of doing business is just as important as reducing the cost of living. The measures to support SMEs on issues like greater flexibility for the ATO to support small business navigate tax issues, increase to the instant asset write-off, small business energy incentive and relief fund, and digital tech uptake will be of assistance.

The Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) has welcomed the initiatives in the Federal Budget aimed at improving the wellbeing of Australians, particularly those on low incomes. This included announcements that the tax rate on the earnings of super accounts with balances of more than $3 million would increase to 30% from 2025-26, and that employers would be required to pay super at the same time as wages from 1 July 2026.

Moving superannuation payments to align with wages could give millions of Australians $50,000 more at retirement and drastically curb Australia’s unpaid super scourge which has cost workers $33 billion over seven years. The federal government should be commended for announcing in this Budget that super should be paid on payday and not at least once a quarter, a policy change that will get more workers all the super they have earned.

Australia is in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, with out-of-control energy price rises and inflation being made worse by reckless govt spending. Yet, mainstream Australian families have been ignored in this year’s Federal Budget. As reported in the Daily Telegraph, IPA analysis shows that average household energy bills will rise 39% by this time next year from March 2022 levels according to Australian Bureau of Statistics CPI data and Budget forecasts.

On 9th May 2023, the second budget was presented by Treasurer Dr. Jim Chalmers. It consisted of several measures related to tax and superannuation, with an emphasis on aiding SMBs, promoting investment in sustainable housing and buildings, modifying the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, and executing Pillar Two of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development / G20 Two-Pillar Solution to tackle digital transformation of the economy.

Australia's clean energy future has over the years picked interest and is among the 2023/24 Federal Budget winners with $4bn in new funding commitments that turbo-charge Australia’s green hydrogen sector and drive the electrification of Australian homes and small businesses. This shows that the Albanese Government recognises the crucial role of clean energy in our economic future and that clean energy and electrification drive down power prices and manage inflation. The budget commitment to $2bn in production incentives for renewable hydrogen will leverage many billions in private investment and will be a boon for Aussie jobs.

In 2022, the weekly number of cyberattacks in the financial industry averaged 1,131 attacks – which represents a 52% increase from 2021, according to Check Point Research figures. More than two-thirds of large institutions were affected by at least one cyberattack, not including successfully prevented attacks and unreported cases. The EU regulation "Digital operational resilience for the financial sector and amending regulations" (EU Regulation 2022/2254 – DORA for short) gives the cybersecurity industry a uniform legal standard to mitigate vulnerability to ICT disruptions and cyber threats along the entire value chain.

At the Black Hat Asia 2023 cyber security conference, to be held in Singapore from May 11th to 12th, everyone will be talking about the security, privacy, and intellectual property implications of artificial intelligence (AI) developed software. Some organisations will be considering writing policies, some companies have simply banned ChatGPT on their networks and others will be blissfully unaware of the security and licensing implications of it’s use.

The month of May is set to put a spotlight on the issue of data management and privacy, something that is of particular importance given the string of cyber breaches and information mishandling we have seen repeatedly documented in the media over the past six months. This Privacy Awareness Week (May 1-7) and Information Awareness Month, it’s time for businesses to look inward and consider how much useless and unnecessary information they're hoarding, not only for the safety of its clients, but for financial management as well.