"WHAT IF govt moved some incentives away from savers to spenders? After all some of those compulsory Super Levy savings are getting invested in the USA instead of innovation in Australia. So why not encourage some local job creation by encouraging savers to spend a little more on improvements to their homes with new kitchens, renovations, new gardens, new clothes, new fashion, hairdos more often ? WHO WOULD BENEFIT?"
Aren't you ignoring the fact that people who save in order to provide themselves with a self funded retirement are not a cost on the taxpayer via claiming old age pension?
Seems a bit silly to be encouraging people to spend only to then have them draw a taxpayer funded pension.
And the tax benefits do not go to 'the superannuation industry', but to the individual.
If you want people to be self funded or even partly funded in retirement, you're going to have to provide some benefits as incentive, eg the tax concessions.
Further, people who have diligently invested and saved throughout their working lives have probably made allowance for doing home improvements etc in their savings target. Spending just for the sake of it seems about as pointless and counter-productive as the Rudd-Gillard government's continued stimulus spending after the acute phase of the GFC had occurred.
