Portfolio — 1 July 2026

Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Daniel Mulino is driving two parallel financial-services reform tracks this week, and the combination gives a clear picture of the portfolio's near-term legislative priorities.

The dominant signal on the comms side is Payday Super. Mulino has described the reforms as a whole-of-economy superannuation change worth approximately $6 billion a year, with funds redirected directly into workers' accounts [TA-260630-treasu-d8969f749b43]. Critically, he set an explicit sequencing position: Payday Super must be finalised before the government moves to any further superannuation measures, with employer and small-business compliance costs a stated consideration in that sequencing judgment.

That framing is a deliberate holding signal — it tells industry and crossbench interlocutors that the superannuation agenda has a defined queue, not an open pipeline. Mulino also moved to separate the reform program from political noise, stating that party-branding matters and preference arrangements with parties such as One Nation are unrelated to the superannuation agenda and should not distract from delivery.

In the House, Mulino moved a motion to amend the bill establishing External Reporting Australia (ERA) — the new statutory body that will develop and maintain accounting, auditing and assurance standards [TA-260630-house-1314b1cdbe60:s007]. The amendment reinforces the portfolio's stated intent to improve fairness and honesty in the accounting and auditing sector by strengthening the standard-setting framework [TA-260630-house-1314b1cdbe60:s007].

ERA is a structural reform to the architecture of financial reporting in Australia, and the amendment activity signals the bill remains live and is being refined through the chamber process.

The two streams connect at the portfolio level: both Payday Super and the ERA amendment are about the integrity and reliability of financial flows — one at the level of employee entitlements, the other at the level of corporate reporting standards. Mulino is advancing both simultaneously, using the comms stream to set the sequencing narrative on superannuation and the parliamentary stream to progress the accounting-standards institutional reform.

Policy staff should note the observations flagging that the low-income superannuation tax offset and superannuation access for under-18s are present in the source record but have not been tagged in the formal instrument register — these may be worth monitoring as the Payday Super consultation progresses.