One Nation’s latest plan to make women poorer comes in the form of a new policy proposal that would enable millions of Australians to access superannuation early.
Under the proposal, employers will continue to pay the 12 per cent guarantee, and people who rent or pay a mortgage can opt in to have three percentage points of that paid to them directly by their fund, or as take-home pay, for up to three years.
At first glance, it may seem like a great idea to give Australians access to their money now to help ease the current cost of living. It’s a clear populist move from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and, according to the Australian Financial Review today, “gazumped” a similar policy that was set to be unveiled by the Coalition.
But economists agree it will drive up inflation and will do little to help with Hanson’s complaint that “interest rates keep rising”. Superannuation experts note that Australians will personally have significantly less in retirement if they access the superannuation early.
The Super Members Council has modelled the policy and found a typical 30-year-old full-time worker who opts in would be around $25,000 worse off in retirement, having taken just $6900 over three years
Meanwhile, One Nation’s Treasury spokesperson, Barnaby Joyce, said he’s “not Jesus Christ” when asked by the ABC on Monday night to explain the superannuation policy’s long-term financial impact.
But we’ve been here before and can share some ideas of what could happen, in addition to the modelling already provided by the SMC.
When Australians were able to access up to $20,000 from their super during the Morrison Government’s pandemic response in 2020, at least 3 million Australians withdrew a combined $37.8 billion, far outnumbering the 1.5 million the government expected to do so. The policy is believed to have further increased inflation, and the SMC found that around 725,000 Australians “effectively wiped out their superannuation accounts” in the process and will be paying the costs well into retirement.
Men withdrew more money overall over the 2020/21 period, but women withdrew a higher proportion of their overall savings, according to figures from the Australian Taxation Office.
This latest just-drain-your-superannuation idea isn’t the only thing One Nation is designing to make women poor.
In 2025, Hanson launched a family tax package enabling couples with dependent children to pool and split their income for tax purposes. It works best for households where one person, typically the woman, earns little to nothing – raising the marginal tax rate on the second earner returning to work, which is already a structural disincentive in the Australian system. Further, this policy would do nothing for single parents – the vast majority of whom are women, and could contribute to fewer years of paid work and lower lifetime earnings, less super and less financial independence for women in relationships.
At Hanson’s National Press Club address this year, she said One Nation would rebalance workplace laws in favour of business. She called workers lazy. She said the laws make it hard for businesses to sack people, and she took aim at paid parental leave, asking (incorrectly, as paid parental leave is government-funded) why businesses should have to pay women to stay home with a baby.
Hanson’s Press Club address also saw the party leader outlining a $90 billion savings plan, which would include abolishing the Department of Climate Change, the National Indigenous Australians Agency, and reviewing federal education and housing departments for duplication. She also wants to narrow the NDIS, cut foreign aid, and cut funding from multicultural and arts programs.
With all those savings, you’d think you could offer Australians some other form of cost of living measure that didn’t involve dipping into their retirement funds? But apparently not. So in addition to using your super, you can also expect to have less trust and access to the agencies that aim to protect Australians’ futures.
The party has also declared it’s prepared to cut worker entitlements to protect business and has argued against arbitrary wage increases. Women are overrepresented in industries like retail, hospitality, care and admin that are typically wage-reliant, where minimum wage decisions, unfair dismissal protections, and penalty rates do the most work
Further One Nation policies that will make women poorer include Hanson’s ideas around reducing gestational limits and mandating counselling for women considering abortion. Sure, this one’s not necessarily an economic policy, but forced continuation of pregnancy can be a fast pathway into long-term poverty for already low-income women. And there’s also One Nation’s migration cuts plan, pushing to deport more than 70,000 and a visa cap of 130,000 per year. If we reduce the supply of aged care workers, disability care workers, childcare workers, and nurses, wages are unlikely to rise in these predominantly female professions. Rather, the services are more likely to thin out further, with those who can’t access such services having no choice but to rely on unpaid family carers.
One Nation’s half-baked policies make for a good headline and may further drive up the support One Nation is garnering. But we’ll all bear the economic costs in the long run; just some will pay more than others in retirement.