Superannuation Changes
Contribution Thresholds
Currently you can deposit up to $100,000 per year into super after tax (a non-concessional contribution), and $25,000 before tax (a concessional contribution). Only a year ago the non-concessional contribution limit was $180,000. The contribution threshold has been continually changing over the years. I think this, more than anything else, is the reason people think super is always changing.
It's worth looking at the history of super to see why the thresholds change.
Until 1993, super was really only available to a few people - public servants and the management portion of large companies. And if you left a company before you reached retirement age, you only got back your contributions when you left the company, so very few people actually had any superannuation. In 1993, superannuation became generally available, and employers started paying 3% of your base salary into super (this was instead of a pay rise), and you could keep your super when you changed jobs. This very slowly went up to the current 9.5%.
It has been estimated that if 12% of your salary goes into super, you would be able to live on that once you retire for the rest of your life. There are some people who dispute this, but let's go with that for now.
Because very few people who are reaching retirement age now have had superannuation for their whole working life, people have been encouraged to put more into super - thus the non-concessional contributions, and salary sacrifice. Super is an amazing tax lurk, and every dollar in super costs the government income (in the form of tax). So, over time, people are gradually spending more of their working lives with superannuation at reasonable levels, so the government is continuously reducing the contribution thresholds.
Personally, I think that non-concessional contributions would be doomed but for the problem we have with women's superannuation. Currently, women get paid less, work part time (because we don't have good, readily obtainable child care), and leave the workforce early (because they often need to look after elderly parents) - consequently ending up with half the superannuation of men. As a result, we have a much lower female participation in the workforce than you would expect, as against other similar OECD countries. The government wants to raise women's participation rates, but it's difficult. If the latest super changes work (where you can play catch up with 5 years of concessional contributions - which is squarely aimed at women), I suspect that non-concessional contributions will stop.
So what about the early retiree?
Superannuation is a tax lurk. You can have most investments within super that you can have outside super. If you can't have an investment in super, it may be a dodgy investment. However, anything that doesn't make much income (eg houses) is not a good super investment, because once you have it in pension phase, you have to take varying amounts out of super each year, depending on your age. After you reach your preservation age, you should have as much in super and in pension phase as possible (within the caps) because you pay no tax on it (as a general rule) - either what is inside superannuation or what you get as income from superannuation. This saves you a lot of money once you are retired.
If you are early retired, you can add concessional contributions and non-concessional contributions to your super. But you may want as much of your money as possible outside super until you reach your preservation age (so you have enough to live on). Once you reach preservation age, you would be drawing a pension from super each year, so you won't need to worry about putting too much in. That means you would like to contribute to super after you reach your preservation age, and to contribute as much as possible between then and when you no longer can (currently 65 if you don't work). Currently, if preservation age was 60, you could contribute 5 x $25,000 + $100,000 when you turn 60, $25,000 + $100,000 each year between then and when you reach 64, and $25,000 + 3 x $100,000 in the year before you turn 65 - so long as you didn't contribute for 5 years before, and have enough room in your super $1.6mill cap, and had less than $500,000 in super when you start...
But that's now. If the contribution thresholds are lowered, your ability to transfer money to super will be lowered.
Note: the above has been simplified to the general case. It is only really talking about contribution thresholds.