I’ve been following the debate around Jim Chalmers’s proposed superannuation reforms with fascination, particularly the story about farmers supposedly “scrambling for answers” when faced with the prospect of paying more tax on their multi-million dollar super balances. The more I dig into this, the more it becomes clear we’re witnessing the death throes of what can only be described as a spectacular tax rort.

Let’s cut through the noise here. The ABC story features a farming family with a combined super balance of $5.5 million who are upset they might have to pay an extra $120,000 in tax annually. But here’s the kicker - if they’re paying $120,000 in tax, they’re making over a million dollars a year through their super fund. And they’re complaining about this?

Reading through an online discussion about reaching the $100k milestone in superannuation brought back vivid memories of hitting that target myself a few years back. The excitement and sense of achievement expressed by the original poster - a 32-year-old celebrating this financial milestone - resonated deeply with many others, myself included.

The psychological impact of reaching six figures in your retirement savings is fascinating. Sure, mathematically speaking, there’s no real difference between $99,800 and $100,000, but our brains are wired to appreciate these round-number milestones. It’s like watching your car’s odometer tick over to 100,000 kilometers - somehow more satisfying than 99,999.

The financial headlines have been particularly dramatic lately, filled with doom and gloom about market downturns and potential crashes. Opening my favourite news apps each morning feels like stepping into an anxiety-inducing echo chamber of market pessimism. But let’s take a deep breath and look at what’s really happening.

My balanced portfolio is down about 2% - hardly the bloodbath some are describing. Year to date, international shares are still up by 10-11%, and Australian shares have delivered a modest 4% gain since July. These aren’t numbers that should be keeping anyone awake at night.

Reading about someone’s decade-long mix-up between their Unique Student Identifier and Unique Superannuation Identifier struck a chord with me today. The story highlights how easy it is to get tangled up in Australia’s maze of administrative acronyms and identifiers.

The bureaucratic overlap between USI (Student) and USI (Super) is exactly the kind of system design that makes me want to bang my head against my standing desk. Why do we insist on using the same acronym for two completely different identifiers? It’s like naming two different Melbourne train lines “Western” - it’s just asking for confusion.

The recent collapse of the Albanese government’s proposed superannuation tax reform for balances over $3 million highlights a persistent problem in Australian policy making: the inability to design sustainable, long-term financial solutions that can withstand public scrutiny.

Standing at my local cafe in Brunswick this morning, listening to fellow patrons discuss the news, it struck me how the debate around this policy proposal missed the mark entirely. The fundamental issue wasn’t about targeting wealthy superannuants - most reasonable people agree that super shouldn’t be a tax haven for the extremely wealthy. Rather, the policy’s fatal flaw lay in its implementation.