So the whole early super release has been a massive sham from the perspective of government policy. We can see this because the government essentially put the weakest security possible on the application process, it's akin to a parent leaving a cookie jar open and only telling their child not to touch it, and maybe giving it a cursory glance to see if they did. That being said, if you did somehow break the very liberal rules, that is if you lied on your application (nothing to do with how you eventually spent the money) then you can probably expect the ATO to chase it up, eventually.

The issue we have is this whole early super release has signalled a fundamental shift in the way we think about superannuation. Super was never meant to be seen as 'your money', it's not yours, it's 'future yous' money because no matter what happens in the meantime you are guaranteed to need it when you physically cannot work anymore. As Paul Keating (the man who set the whole system up originally) said in a recent interview, people should be livid that the government put them in a position where they had to dip into their super, because government programs should've been there since day one. This has also opened the door for future access to super beyond the original incredibly rare case of genuine need, such as for a housing deposit etc, and the attitude that 'this is only xyz amount of the total super pot'. Source: Am a policy analyst for the Parliament of Australia.