The collective impact of the issues raised by the SMSFA regarding the revised Division 296 legislation will affect members of large funds as much as small member funds.

Peter Burgess, CEO of the SMSF Association, said it is for this reason that he is hoping the superannuation sector will join forces to push for amendments that will ultimately benefit every Australian.

In the most recent SMSF Adviser podcast, Burgess said it is “certainly possible” that the bill will be introduced to Parliament next month given that due process is normally a month.

“The reason we saw the draft legislation issued just before Christmas is because they wanted to give the industry enough time to understand the legislation and also to raise any issues as part of the consultation phase,” he said.

“If you’re working back from the fact that they wanted to get the legislation into parliament in February, that meant that they had to get the draft legislation out before Christmas. We would have liked to have seen it not so close to Christmas, but that was the timeframes that they’re working to.”

He continued that from past experience, once a bill gets to draft stage it is unusual to see material changes made to legislation and, while the association has raised issues in its submission, the likely result is that the legislation introduced into Parliament will look very similar to what was released in draft format.

Burgess said although the issues raised by the association in the submission may seem like “we’re fighting over some nuances,” when taken collectively they suggest that the policy settings are not right.

“We will certainly have our say in Canberra if the legislation is introduced in the parliament without any modifications. We will raise concerns with the Coalition. We will raise concerns with the Greens. But I’m really hoping that the other sectors of the superannuation industry will join us on that, because we’re now fighting over a lot of issues which are not specific to self-managed super funds.”

He added that while previously the SMSFA and other bodies were arguing against the taxation of unrealised gains, a lot of the issues raised over the revised bill are ones that affect large funds as well.

“Hopefully they’ll join us in pushing back against the current bill in trying to get some amendments,” he said.

Aaron Dunn, CEO of Smarter SMSF, said it was three years ago at the SMSF Association National Conference that the first iteration of Div 296 was raised, and with the 2026 national conference just weeks away, the sector is still talking about the issue.

“It does all stem back to an understanding of we wanted a different set of rules, because as an industry, we can provide this in a more exact science than what APRA funds can, but in saying that we need to ensure that SMSFs, in what that calculation looks like, aren’t disadvantaged,” Dunn said.

“When you look at something like the integrity measure on total superannuation balance, that doesn’t necessarily seem fair, and there are some really good examples when you think about First Guardian and those sorts of things that are very front of mind in our industry at the moment – when those sort of things could have a reasonable impact, because it’s a closing balance and an opening balance.”

Dunn added that this is not something many would expect to be a core part of the APRA calculation and it is important to ensure there are fair and reasonable outcomes.

“I think this is an interesting point in itself, that we are seeing more and more examples of how Treasury is designing things within the SMSF sector that are moving away from sector neutrality,” he said.

“What I mean by that is we’re not only seeing it there, but we’ve also seen it within the NALI rules, where we’ve got carve outs around APRA, but we’ve got a different set of rules for SMSF. So whilst we’ve got what we’ve asked for, we still need to ensure that these outcomes represent something that looks fair and reasonable when you assess it against what we’re seeing in other sectors of the superannuation industry.”