Plugging holes in the federal budget using people's superannuation

If you were a federal government with a massive hole in your budget, what would you do? The current government has decided to increase tax on superannuation balances over 3 million dollars.
 
Currently, the earnings on individual member superannuation balances over 3 million dollars are taxed at 15% while in accumulation phase.
 
From 1 July 2025 the Government intends to apply an extra tax of 15% on earnings, where the individual member super balance exceeds 3 million dollars. This will improve its budget position by almost a billion dollars.
 
Now, you might say, only a tiny percentage of Australians have a super balance over 3 million, so no big deal. You might be right. But from our perspective there are two major areas of concern.
 
The first is that for the first time the government is intending to tax unrealised gains. This has never been presented by treasury as a potential measure to legislation before, and is a worry. Basically, the change in value of those superannuation balances year on year will be taxed, which is horrendous for tax outcomes and cashflow. 
 
The second area of concern for us is that while this change currently only impacts people with super balances over 3 million dollars, if a government can see fit to go after that bracket, what’s to prevent them, or a future government, from lowering that threshold to go after a wider pool of Australians? There’s no suggestion that this is imminent, but it’s certainly a red flag for us.