Industry superannuation funds are great if you are a member of one. Low administration fees, focused on returns for members, and in some industries, still part of an anachronistic, closed-shop union deal. The arrangement ensures workers in a given industry have their employer super guarantee payments made to the industry fund, and often at rates above the legislated 11 per cent of an employee’s ordinary wages.

This all sounds great, but an opaque part of these arrangements indirectly funds the Australian Labor Party. Federally, this party has become synonymous with ‘Woke and broke’.

Indeed, their Woke policies and broken promises are sending many Australians broke.

Australia’s superannuation system and means-tested pension arrangements are fair and equitable for the most part. The Australian economic model, often referred to as a ‘mixed economy’, sits comfortably between American competitive capitalism and Swedish coordinated capitalism. In many ways, we have the best of both worlds: competition where it is beneficial to consumers and equality of opportunity in health and education where it often matters most.

But when it comes to superannuation, the cost borne by employers is not a major issue. Sure, it adds to the cost of goods and services, but it is across the board and does not distort markets inequitably. All employers must pay the super guarantee, so it is a level playing field.

And Australians have developed their unique understanding of the proper role of government which has been influenced by trends over time.

The major reforms of the Hawke-Keating-Howard years helped us adapt to changing global circumstances. Both Hawke and Howard agreed a few years ago that Australia’s ‘appetite’ for reform had diminished, and this was detrimental to our future prosperity. At present, even a Teal MP is calling for real tax reform, rather than the current ‘fiddling’ by the Albanese government with the legislated Stage 3 tax cuts.

The point of the Stage 3 tax cuts was to claw back ‘bracket creep’. As wages rise over time, those on wages that were once considered large pay more tax on amounts that in contemporary terms are not so high. As an extreme example to illustrate my point, a labourer earning $50 per week in the 1970s might have been able to pay a mortgage on a house worth $20,000. Today, a labourer earning $900 per week paying the same tax rate as their 1970s counterpart would be paying the top marginal rate.

Tax brackets have to move with the times and when they don’t, taxpayers lose badly. Stages 1 and 2 of the tax changes provided for low and middle-income earners. Stage 3 was delayed until July this year to provide a similar break for higher income earners, and rightly after those on lesser incomes had received the benefits of ameliorating bracket creep.

But Mr Albanese’s ‘fiddling’ upsets the logic of ameliorating bracket creep. Like the $275 reduction to our power bills, Albo’s ‘we haven’t changed our position’ statement about the promised Stage 3 tax cuts … well, anyway, it just changed. Like everything else this government has done, it is robbing Peter to pay Paul but forgetting that Peter won’t bother producing anything if the profits are taken away.

What has this got to do with your super? Well, if you are part of an industry super fund, you are helping to shore up this government that now breaks promises as a matter of habit.

The Morrison government introduced legislation to ensure a more transparent superannuation reporting system before the last federal election. On coming to power, one of Albo’s first moves, despite his promise to provide greater transparency, was to wind back the disclosure requirements. This would mean that super fund members would only see the aggregate amount of donations made to political parties and unions.

Even the Greens saw through this ‘blatant hypocrisy’ and the Albanese government, while also being accused of ‘going soft’ on its transparency claims, was forced to capitulate on the transparency of super fund donations.

But even if political and union donations are presented transparently, directors’ compensation is where the fuzziness begins.

Union-appointed directors to industry super funds are compensated in accordance with the generally accepted market rates for similar directors elsewhere. The difference, however, is in where the funds end up.

For example, a union-appointed director of an industry super fund who is compensated some $90,000 for attending some 17 out of 18 meetings in a given year does not receive the compensation. Instead, the union employee is paid a salary for their union duties which include the super fund board appointment.

So, the union employee not only contributes to union activities but as a consequence of their employment, provides some $90,000 per year as additional funds that are paid to the relevant union. Some of this then goes to the Labor Party as a matter of course.

Given that the superannuation assets total around $3.5 trillion, this is no small fry.

But what it means is that industry super fund members who may not be members of the relevant union are probably helping to fund the Labor Party whether they like it or not. Given Labor’s abysmal performance in keeping promises despite talking a big game, industry super fund members are justified if they are livid.

Our superannuation industry is not necessarily a bad thing. If Australians accept that the role of government and employers is to fund the retirement of workers, then so be it. Our unique ‘mixed economy’ and its treatment of social welfare, education, and health services is appropriately generous and beneficial. Our forebears gave us the right to such benefits through their hard work and foresight.

But when compulsory superannuation is used to fund some unions that then provide money for the Australian Labor Party which then breaks its promises to the Australian people, then the social contract is broken, and things need to change.

We often hear that the Coalition is funded by ‘big business’ but the reality is far less obvious. If you have seen Labor ministers being followed around by the so-called ‘big end’ of town – let alone the outrageously partisan performance of the likes of Qantas recently – then you would know that Labor’s funding makes the Coalition look like a footy club sponsored by chook raffles at the local pub. Labor has a systemic advantage that the Coalition could nor should ever replicate.

And while it may be confronting to realise one ought to be grateful for having access to a superannuation fund that looks after its members, there is an element of inequity that appears in sharp relief when the government of the day has lost its integrity.

Regrettably, that day is today.