Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Treasurer. e61 research has shown that young, innovative firms drive productivity, yet Australia's early-stage investment per capita is roughly a third of the US's and a bit over half of the UK's. I'm concerned we aren't going to close this gap. We know that large super funds have halved their allocation to venture capital over the last ten years, and the taxation of unrealised gains is going to make it harder for those investments from super. So how will the government drive private capital towards the most innovative businesses that can drive Australia's next productivity boom?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks to the member for Wentworth for her question, for her interest and also for the earlier opportunities to talk about some of these really important issues. I'll go to the specific first and then to the general. When it comes to the superannuation changes before the Senate, these are all about making sure that there are still generous tax concessions for people in the superannuation system but that they are slightly less generous for people with the biggest balances. The honourable member knows that, and we've discussed it at length in this parliament as well.

As part of a lot of consultation that we've done over quite a long period now when it comes to the superannuation tax concessions—and I salute the Assistant Treasurer for his work on this as well—one of the things we have discovered and that we understand is that the categories that measure venture capital in superannuation are only a very, very small sliver of venture capital in self-managed super funds. For example, if you think about the most recent comparison, which is a couple of years old now, listed assets are about 30 per cent, but the sorts of categories that VC gets captured in are about three per cent—a tiny sliver.

I think, in fairness to the honourable member, she also acknowledged in her question that the challenge of VC funding and capital flows when it comes to VC—the industry minister has raised this in different ways in our forums as well—has been a longer term challenge and a longer term trend which is completely unrelated to the changes that we are proposing to super. But it is a challenge, and I acknowledge the concerns that the member raises and that others have raised about VC.

That's one of the reasons why, when we first came to office, amongst all of the opportunities we had to put together different groups to help advise us externally on government policy, one of the most important things we did was we put together the Treasurer's Investor Round Table. That is all about trying to grapple with some of these challenges we have with capital flows in our economy. Our Future Made in Australia agenda, our agenda around superannuation, what we're trying to do in housing, the clean energy transformation and some of the other big beneficial shifts in our economy—a lot of what we're trying to do is about is trying to get those capital flows right. But for some of these especially difficult challenges, the investor roundtable, which brings together trillions of dollars of capital around a table to advise us on how we nut out and grapple with and solve some of the issues, has been a really important forum—not because we have fixed every issue that the honourable member rightly raises, but because we know that we give ourselves a much better chance of addressing those issues if we work together with people inside and outside the parliament. In that regard, I welcome and encourage the great work of e61.