Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson claims he never saw a superannuation plan similar to One Nation’s when Sussan Ley led the Liberal Party.

Before resigning as Opposition leader in February, Ms Ley was apparently preparing to announce a plan to allow Australian workers to access a quarter of their 12 per cent compulsory employer superannuation contributions to prevent them from losing their home as either a renter or a mortgage holder.

But Mr Wilson said he had no knowledge of this plan as the then Opposition spokesman for industrial relations and employment.

“Well, I never saw a copy of that plan, and so I’m afraid this was all news to me. I read about it like everybody else,” he told News24 on Wednesday.

Mr Wilson also denied ever seeing a copy of that policy when Ms Ley was Liberal leader, despite being a member of the Opposition’s expenditure review committee at the time.

“No, I said I didn’t see a copy of it. I understand that there was a copy in her office, it was never shared, as far as I’m aware, with me,” he said.

“So, all I have to do is make observations based on what is public reporting.”

Ms Ley had an identical superannuation plan to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, unveiled earlier this week, The Australian Financial Review revealed on Monday.

Members of the Coalition’s expenditure review committee were earlier this year briefed on a plan to allow early superannuation access for housing which would have formed the centrepiece of Ms Ley’s May Budget-in-reply speech had Angus Taylor not replaced her as Liberal leader, Opposition sources have told The Australian.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has stepped up Labor’s attack on the Coalition and One Nation, who both have policies on allowing early access to super, by arguing higher compulsory super would reduce reliance on the age pension in coming decades.

He gave a preview of Treasury’s upcoming intergenerational report, being released on September 21.

“In the new Treasury projections, the number of Australians over Age Pension age will almost double to around 9 million by 2066,” Dr Chalmers told the Super Members Council summit in Canberra.

“But the IGR analysis shows the share of older Australians receiving a pension or income support payment is expected to fall, from 66 per cent last year to 52 per cent by 2066.

“This means spending on age and service pensions is projected to fall from 2.3 per cent of GDP last year to 1.8 per cent in 2066.”

During its last period in office, compulsory employer super contributions under the Coalition rose from 9.25 per cent in June 2014 to 10 per cent in July 2021.

Former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott’s government in 2014 froze the rate at 9.5 per cent until June 2021, with support in the Senate from the Palmer United Party, undoing his Labor predecessor Julia Gillard’s plan for it to hit 12 per cent from July 2019.

Since returning to power in 2022, the superannuation guarantee under Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese has climbed to 12 per cent in July 2025, via 0.5 percentage point increments every year beforehand.

The Grattan Institute think tank in 2019 argued against the idea of increasing compulsory employer super contributions from a then rate of 9.5 per cent to 12 per cent, predicting it would reduce future wage increases.