A survey by Sunsuper, one of Australia’s largest superannuation funds, has found that 59% of businesses supported the increase to the Superannuation Guarantee (SG) rate, including 14% who strongly supported the rise.
In fact, the survey of more than 500 small to medium Australian business owners, conducted by Galaxy Research on behalf of Sunsuper, revealed that amongst businesses of 20 or more employees, support for the SG increase climbed to 85%.
When asked how they would fund the increase in the SG rate, the majority of businesses planned to finance the rise from business savings/reserves (55%), with the remainder saying they would withhold pay rises (21%), or reduce bonuses (15%) or salaries (9%).
Sunsuper’s Chief Executive Officer Scott Hartley said the results proved that Australian businesses, including small and medium businesses, were mostly in favour of increasing the SG contribution rate to help staff save for retirement.
“It’s encouraging to see that most Australian business owners were planning to fund the SG increase themselves, rather than from employees’ pay, it shows that they care about helping their employees save for retirement, ahead of their own interests,” said Mr Hartley. “It also further highlights what a disappointment this week’s announcement of the seven-year delay to SG rate increase could be for many Australians.
“We think that any shift in government policy which diminishes the capacity for Australians to save for and fund their retirement is discouraging.
“The shifting of the goal posts makes it difficult for people to have confidence in the Australian superannuation system, for businesses to effectively plan, and for employees to save for retirement.”
The survey also revealed that if the SG rate increase was delayed, Australian businesses would reinvest the money they would have used to fund the extra SG payments into their business (77%), give staff a pay rise (10%), give staff bonuses (9%), or throw a staff function/party (3%).
