Well, anybody who divorces – even if that divorce was up to nine years ago – is collateral damage. How quickly can a divorce be done? The super changes also make it far more likely if you endure the traumatic experience in future, that you'll have to kiss goodbye to your family's home. As part of its sweeping super changes, the Coalition wants to limit non-concessional contributions – those made after tax – to $500,000 across a lifetime. Usually such crackdowns are "grandfathered" so apply only from, say, budget night, but this one counts contributions made back to July 2007. It's rough in general but if, in the past nine years, you've lost your super as part of a divorce settlement – perhaps because you've kept the house – it's brutal. You'll struggle hard to rebuild your super balance.

But this is not just the case if you've already used up your $500,000 lifetime after-tax limit; a reduction in allowable before-tax (concessional) contributions could kibosh you too. The limit is planned to move from $30,000 to $25,000 a year from July 2017. Gone also will be the ability for 50-pluses to shovel in $35,000 a year when finally the mortgage and munchkins are gone and they can afford it. In short, many divorcees who have lost their super now also stand to lose the ability to replace it. And with an average divorce age of 44, says the ABS, they need to be able to do so fast. What about future divorces, remembering this is the fate of one in three marriages? As Marshall Brentnall from Evalesco Financial Services puts it: "It's more likely you'll see proportional splits – so the super will be in the mix and the home will be in the mix [and will have to be sold]. If one party has a particular emotional tie to the home that could be problematic." Consider the following scenario that Strategy Steps, adviser to the advisers, prepared for me…

A couple, both aged 50 and earning $80,000, divorces. The husband has $300,000 in super and the wife has $700,000, because of a $500,000 inheritance a few years ago that she paid into her super as a non-concessional contribution. In the settlement, she gets the $1 million house and he gets all the super. The wife spends the next 17 years, until pension age, exhausting all available allowances in a bid to rebuild her super balance (and earns a net 7 per cent a year). Under current rules: She pays in $35,000 a year in concessional contributions (employer and salary sacrifice) and also $2450 a month as a non-concessional contribution (this totals to another $500,000 in after-tax contributions). Her super balance at age 67: $1.12 million. Under proposed rules: She can pay in only $25,000 a year in concessional contributions and nothing after tax – even though she has been left with no super, she's used her lifetime non-concessional limit.

Her super balance at age 67: $401,541. This is well below the $545,000 that the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia estimates a single person needs to fund a comfortable retirement (and it's a conservative estimate). Of course, the $500,000 our case study was going to put into super could instead be invested outside of it but the earnings would be taxed at double the amount and income could be taxable in retirement (compared with tax-free super pensions). I hear you ask: "Who on earth has $500k to dump in their fund?" Someone who has sold an investment property, cashed in a business or, yes, come into an inheritance. But they may even just have paid off their mortgage and therefore freed up extra cash to invest each year. Or been forced by divorce to downsize the home they received in the settlement to extricate some money both to live on and fund retirement at a later date. As Strategy Steps' Louise Biti says: "The closer the person is to retirement or the lower their remaining balance when they split, the harder it will be to rebuild."

In any case, an even super split would give each spouse a sporting chance. I applaud many of the super changes in this budget – particularly the ability to mop up unused concessional contributions in the subsequent five years, which could significantly help people boost their super after a period of caring. That one's great for divorcees too – provided they have the means. But if this government is returned on July 2, it must undo the disadvantage to divorcees by allowing the asset "split" to also split out lifetime contributions so at least each partner keeps his or her share of allowance based on the super they retain. We won't know until we see the legislation after the election.

Potential ways couples can protect themselves from super changes Split your pre-tax super contributions equally in marriage – the main goal may be to equalise balances so, as a family, pay in and amass as much as possible under the proposed stringent limits. Contribute as much as concessional – salary sacrifice – contributions as you can for a lower earning spouse (from July 2017 it's planned you'll no longer have to do this through an employer). Equalise your pre-tax contributions in marriage – if you and your spouse have unequal balances, you could also use the once-a-year opportunity to help even out balances by splitting concessional contributions paid into the higher balance account across to the other spouse's super. Under the super splitting rules, you can move up to 85 per cent of contributions into the other spouse's account. Split your post-tax contributions equally in marriage – this way, in the event of a subsequent relationship breakdown, neither spouse loses the right to make future non-concessional contributions. When making after-tax contributions progressively over time, share them between accounts. Also get freebies and tax benefits via after-tax spouse contributions (attracting up to a $540 tax rebate if, from July 2017, your spouse earns under $37,000) and a $1000 annual non-concessional contribution (to get the government's co-contribution of up to $500 into the fund of someone earning under $50,454). Split your super equally on divorce – possible the only way to ensure both parties still have some capacity to rebuild their super if they have the money to do so. We'll need to see the legislation to know if divorcees will be disadvantaged.