The head of Australian wealth management firm MLC says consumers will lose confidence in superannuation if governments continue to tinker with the scheme.

MLC chief executive Steve Tucker says governments needed to focus on how to ensure the long-term success of Australia’s superannuation scheme, given the issue of the nation’s ageing population and changing demographics.

“The challenge with super is that it is such a large pool of money it is like a honey pot, it attracts everybody’s interests,” Mr Tucker told a business lunch in Sydney on Thursday.

“In challenging times like this, when you are trying to balance a budget, governments can’t help themselves but look in there and see what they might be able to extract in terms of tax through changing the rules.”

The federal government unveiled a number of proposed changes to superannuation in the 2012/13 budget, labelling the reforms “stronger super”.

This included a new, low-cost product called “my super”, measures designed to make everyday transactions simpler and lower costs, as well as to improve the integrity and governance of super schemes.

The changes, among other measures, were being debated in parliament.

MLC is the wealth management business owned by the National Australia Bank.

Mr Tucker said that while it was easy to knock the government’s superannuation reform agenda, “in fact a very large percentage of what we are doing as an industry and with government is fantastic”.

However, he hoped that once the current reforms were dealt with the sector would be left alone for a while.

“There is only so much an industry can bear and only so much a customer will put up with in terms of change, so we need some stability in reform, post this round,” Mr Tucker said.

“I think that any more change and tweaking in the near term is going to be detrimental to confidence in super, so I hope it doesn’t happen.”

NAB shares were up three cents at $25.56 at 1609 AEST on Thursday.

AAP jtc/