Barnaby might not understand the velocity of money, but neither does anyone else, and to be honest, the entire concept of it on inflation is pretty disputed, so trying to argue against him on that score is a mug’s game. The same goes for the One Nation and LNP’s policy of letting people raid their super.
Tue 8 Sep 2026 12.24 AEST
Barnaby Joyce speaks to journalists in the Press Gallery at Parliament House in Canberra. Photo: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
In a sign of the brutal impact of the Reserve Bank’s three interest rate rises, more than 1 million Australians worked multiple jobs in the June quarter for the first time. When cost of living pressures rise, one of the more dramatic impacts we see in the economy is more people needing to work more than one job to make ends meet.
Last week, research by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) confirmed that they were wrong in 2023 to criticise research by The Australia Institute, which showed rising profits were the significant cause of inflation in the post-pandemic period.
Barnaby Joyce might be dumb, but he’s no idiot.
Barnaby’s obfuscation on 730 and ABC’s AM will work well with his audience. Most people hate journalists, and especially hate interviewers, so they are not going to mind Barnaby suggesting the questions were really just gotchas. Unfortunately, it has been a very, very long while since any interview that caught out a politician actually had any worthwhile impact.
Barnaby might not understand the velocity of money, but neither does anyone else, and to be honest, the entire concept of it on inflation is pretty disputed, so trying to argue against him on that score is a mug’s game.
The same goes for the One Nation and LNP’s policy of letting people raid their super.
Anyone saying it will be inflationary is right. Anyone saying it will sentence mostly low-middle income people (and especially women) to a much poorer retirement is also right. Anyone saying people will raid their super is right.
This is a very dumb policy.
The problem is people are hurting.
As I’ve written about before, real wages took a god almighty hit in 2022 and 2023, and in the past 3 years have not recovered:
So, arguing against One Nation by saying people should go without now so they can have more later is really not going to work politically. People are hurting now.
The problem is the policy won’t help them – it would lead to higher inflation and interest rates. Any ‘benefit’ would quickly be wiped out.
It’s also a policy designed to be loved by businesses who are being let off the hook and essentially being told they don’t have to give anyone a wage rise, and who will likely argue against increasing wages because they will say employees can access super (this would 100% be used by businesses to argue against increases in Award wages).
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This entire thing really highlights the disgusting inequality baked into our political, media and economic system.
Remember last year, when the government sought to change tax on superannuation for funds with more than $3m (you know, the roughly 0.1% of all super funds)?
That was blasted as a death tax, as a raid on inheritance, as communism. It was painted as evil, because how dare you touch superannuation!
But that was because it was affecting the superannuation and the wealth of the very richest people in Australia who use superannuation to avoid paying tax.
This current argument won’t affect rich people; it will only hurt the retirements of low- and middle-income earners.
The problem with superannuation is not that it is locked away – that is why super is taxed lower than income. The problem is that the tax breaks so greatly favour the very wealthy.
When real wages take such a hit, the government should be doing what it can to alleviate the pain – obviously through stronger wage rises, but also through providing services that will help with the cost of living. Say, dental care.
In this current financial year, the richest 10% (people whose income is over $162,000) will get around $22.5bn in superannuation tax breaks. By contrast, a very generous Dental in Medicare scheme would cost $14.9bn. That gives the government still around $8bn to play with.
You want to counter One Nation? Don’t talk about velocity of money or how compound interest works over the course of your working life. No, address the issue; people are hurting, and help them.
And if you think reducing tax concessions on super is not the way to do it, then tax gas and raise $17bn and spend it on things that make people’s lives better.
Superannuation is rigged in favour of the wealthy; you won’t win a fight telling low- and middle-income earners that super is for them, when the entire system at the moment really is not.
