For the SMSF sector, it’s a promise made during the last election campaign that is still causing headaches.

Three years ago, Albanese was clear that Labor had “no intention” to make changes to super.

When the $3 million super tax – now known as division 296 – was announced in early 2023, there was widespread outcry over this broken promise.

Walking back the earlier statements, the PM said it was merely a “modest change” to improve the sustainability of the super system.

Since this point, the government has sought to downplay the gravity of the changes – moving the tax on earnings for super balances above $3 million from the current 15 per cent to 30 per cent – arguing that it wouldn’t have an impact on the core of superannuation.

There are certainly arguments in favour of reducing the tax concessions for high balances.

The super system is, by design, a very friendly tax environment compared with most other structures, aiming to alleviate the burden of pension payments through self-funded retirement savings.

Having the broader population effectively subsidising a tiny minority that is at the extremely high end of balances is, to the government’s point, not the reason for which superannuation was created.

Had the tax been set up in a more reasonable way, there’s little doubt it would have sailed through both houses rather than getting stonewalled in the Senate.

Instead, the government has stubbornly refused to budge on taxing unrealised capital gains or even indexing the threshold.

The budget delivered last week made it clear the tax would remain and become an election issue.

For its part, the Coalition has been steadfastly against the tax hike, going as far as to promise to repeal div 296 if it had somehow managed to pass prior to the election being called.

Then there’s the prospect of a minority government, which would make even non-controversial measures difficult to get over the line, let alone contentious ones like the super tax.

It hasn’t been all doom and gloom for the SMSF sector during Albanese’s term as PM, with the recent legacy pension moves finding unanimous support and the NALE/I legislation finally seeing movement, even if it is still highly flawed.

It’s always dangerous to boil an election down to a single issue, but Labor could go a long way to appeasing SMSF professionals if it bit the bullet and conceded some ground, regardless of the hit to the budget bottom line.

Surely getting some of the tax revenue is better than refusing to budge an inch and getting none of it?