What causes imported Maven project in Eclipse to use Java 1.5 instead of Java 1.6 by default and how can I ensure it doesn't?

The m2eclipse plugin doesn't use Eclipse defaults, the m2eclipse plugin derives the settings from the POM. So if you want a Maven project to be configured to use Java 1.6 settings when imported under Eclipse, configure the maven-compiler-plugin appropriately, as I already suggested:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.1</version>
  <configuration>
    <source>1.6</source>
    <target>1.6</target>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

If your project is already imported, update the project configuration (right-click on the project then Maven V Update Project Configuration).

I added this to my pom.xml below the project description and it worked:

<properties>
    <maven.compiler.source>1.6</maven.compiler.source>
    <maven.compiler.target>1.6</maven.compiler.target>
</properties>

I wanted to add something to the answer already provided. maven-compiler-plugin by default will compile your project using Java 1.5 which is where m2e get's its information.

That's why you have to explicitly declare the maven-compiler-plugin in your project with something other then 1.5. Your effective pom.xml will implicitly use the default set in the maven-compiler-plugin pom.xml.