In the quiet machinery of superannuation reform, a policy meant to close a narrow door may have shut a much wider one. The federal government's June ban on self-managed super funds entering new residential home loans — passed swiftly as part of a Greens deal — was premised on the assumption that roughly 4,000 such loans were written each year. New industry modelling now places that figure at 16,000, suggesting the measure's reach was four times larger than understood when it passed without consultation. It is a reminder that policy built on aging data can carry consequences that outlast the ur