The Treasurer has defended possible tweaks to tax breaks on multimillion-dollar superannuation balances as reasonable changes that won’t alter the fundamentals of Australia’s retirement savings system.

Jim Chalmers told Sky News the changes under consideration, which could include a cap on large super balances attracting concessional tax treatments, were not “especially controversial” and similar in scope to changes made by the former coalition government.

He said the Coalition had made similar “tweaks” to the super system while in office, including changes to superannuation taxes in 2016 that raised $5 billion.

“So the fundamentals won’t change – the tax concessionality will still be there, but we do need to consider whether we can afford the degree of tax concessionality for people who’ve got very big balances,” he said.

Dr Chalmers said he hadn’t been considering or working on changes to superannuation taxes for a long time, but they had consistently been recognised as a pressure on the budget.

He also denied the possible changes to top-end concessional treatment would be the first of many changes to the super system, as suggested by former Liberal prime minister John Howard.

‘Not the right time’

“I’m not interested in a war of words with John Howard – John Howard is someone who I respect and he deserves better than to be wheeled out to prop up (shadow treasurer) Angus Taylor’s dodgy arguments or to shore up (Opposition Leader) Peter Dutton’s failing leadership,” he said.

But Mr Taylor said Mr Howard had spoken of his own volition and had identified a genuine breach of trust from the government.

“The point he made is this will just be the beginning for Labor,” he said.

Mr Taylor added Dr Chalmers was failing to exhibit “sustainable” spending patterns by pushing $45 billion in off-budget spending through parliament.

“This is just not the right time – we’ve got inflationary pressures, and interest rate pressures, and that’s something that he doesn’t seem to want to talk about if he can avoid it.”

Federal ministers have been alluding to possible changes to super concessions for months, but the discussion ramped up last week with a proposal to enshrine an objective for superannuation into legislation.

-AAP