Another boost to consumer confidence in super would be to extract it from the “hurly burly” of political debate – once this year of reform draws to a close, Shorten said. If members are going to be forced to commit their savings to the system throughout their working lives, they must feel certain it will not be dramatically altered by the time they retire. .

With the caveat that it may be his most naïve comment in his weeks in the superannuation portfolio, he said: “We do have to take the politics out of retirement incomes policy and superannuation. We’ve got to get to a point where we can fence it off and not let it be influenced by the annual Budget.”

It would be “very smart politics” to “set it up and move it beyond politics,” he said.

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