Super Alert – 26 June 2026: Treasury registers regulations re Division 296 tax, ATO guidance for super funds re Paid Parental Leave Super Contributions
Welcome to the weekly KHQ Super Alert. This week Treasury has registered regulations relating to Division 296 tax. The levies imposed on superannuation entities for the 2026/27 financial year were registered. APRA published its quarterly statistics, along with a speech highlighting the risks of AI and quantum computing and another highlighting recent developments in superannuation reform. Meanwhile, the ATO published guidance for super funds relating to Paid Parental Leave Super Contributions.
APRA speech – Deputy Chair Margaret Cole’s farewell remarks
On 25 June 2026, APRA published a final speech given by the Deputy Chair, Margaret Cole. Among other things, she spoke about the best financial interests duty and expenditure, transparency, the performance test, governance and accountability:
- ‘Putting the F in BFID’: ‘One small change in wording but a giant leap forward in implications for the industry’, and ‘APRA’s focus on trustee spending has changed behaviours’.
- Performance test is working: It has ‘worked to achieve the objective’ and reduced members in failing products ‘from one million to 8,500.’
- Governance and accountability: ‘Strong governance and accountability are central to the trustee’s role,’ yet ‘gaps remain’.
Click here for details.
APRA speech – Member Therese McCarthy Hockey’s speech
On 24 June 2026, APRA published a speech given by Member Therese McCarthy Hockey in relation to AI and quantum computing.
Two of the key points covered in her speech:
- ‘Frontier AI is not just a cyber risk issue. It’s third-party risk, a concentration risk and a sovereign access risk. A critical business process, control or cyber-defence capability that depends on a single offshore frontier AI model may be disrupted not only by an outage or cyber incident but by a regulatory decision made overseas.’
- ‘Until recently, the hypothetical day when quantum computers become powerful enough to break the cryptographic security that currently protects global digital infrastructure was thought to be more than 10 years away. But advancements in computing technology, including AI, have led to speculation that cryptographically relevant quantum computing could become a reality much sooner’.
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APRA – Supervisory Levies Determination 2026
On 23 June 2026, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Supervisory Levies Determination 2026 was registered. According to the Explanatory Statement ‘Part 9 of the Determination relates to the levy imposed by the Superannuation Supervisory Levy Imposition Act 1998 on a superannuation entity’ to apply for the 2026/27 financial year.
For a superannuation entity that is not a small APRA fund nor a pooled superannuation trust, it is generally calculated by a levy percentage of 0.00791 with a minimum levy of $12,500 and a maximum of $1,050,000.
Click here for details.
ATO – Paid Parental Leave Super Contribution set to commence
On 23 June 2026, the ATO released guidance for super funds, who will being receiving the first Paid Parental leave Super Contributions (PPLSC) from the ATO in July 2026. The guidance recommends that funds ‘review their processes, so they can receive and allocate PPLSC payments to the correct member account and meet reporting requirements’.
The guidance provides practical details on how funds can identify PPLSC payments through the receipt of Government Contribution Transaction Request (GCTR) and Government Contributions Amendment Request (GCTAR) messages. ‘Funds will need to report PPLSC to [the ATO] in the same way it was sent, using the same identifying characteristics’.
Click here for details.
APRA – Quarterly superannuation industry statistics
On 22 June 2026, APRA published its March 2026 edition of the ‘Quarterly Superannuation Industry Publication, Fund-level and Product Statistics’. The following superannuation publications are now available on the APRA website:
- Quarterly Superannuation Industry Publication
- Quarterly Superannuation Product Statistics
- Quarterly Fund-Level Statistics
Key statistics as at 31 March 2026 are that there are 51 MySuper products (with an average balance of $77,000), 664 Choice products (with an average balance of $142,000 in the accumulation phase) and 112 defined benefit products; and 28.3% of all choice product assets are invested via platform products. Total assets in APRA-regulated funds are $2.79 trillion.
Click here for details.
Treasury – Division 296 Regulations registered
On 18 June 2026, Treasury registered the Income Tax Assessment (1997 Act) Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System and Other Measures) Regulations 2026 (Regulations) which amend the Income Tax Assessment (1997 Act) Regulations 2021.
According to the Explanatory Statement, the Regulations relate to the ‘Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System’ legislative amendments which ‘reduce the tax concessions available to individuals with a total superannuation balance (TSB) exceeding the large superannuation balance threshold (currently $3 million) for income years on and after 1 July 2026’.
Further, it states that the Regulations ‘prescribe certain values, calculations, and methods so that all applicable superannuation interests are properly assessed for the purposes of the Division 296 tax’.
Schedule 1 deals with the ‘Better targeted superannuation concessions’, Schedule 2 deals with the total superannuation balance value and the value of superannuation interests, Schedule 3 deals with family law splits and some other related amendments are set out in Schedule 4.
The Regulations commence on 19 June 2026.
Click here for details.
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