Misha Schubert

Super has one job: to grow Australians’ retirement savings to deliver them the strongest possible retirement income by investing only in members’ best financial interests.

Australians’ retirement savings are only invested where they can generate the strongest possible risk-adjusted returns.

Today we’ve seen more comments from a politician urging the use of super to solve other policy problems.

Trade Minister Don Farrell’s comments that Australians’ superannuation savings should be invested in American meat-processing facilities to seek to avert lamb tariffs are ill-informed and ill-advised.

Australians are crystal clear that their super should only be invested where it can deliver them the strongest possible long-term risk-adjusted returns.

It is not the job of Australians’ super savings to solve other policy problems. Nor should it ever be.

In the past month, we’ve also seen politicians proposing policies to raid super early which would just unleash higher inflation, hike interest rates, and leave Australians poorer in retirement.

Australian super funds meticulously assess the best investment deals to grow the retirement savings of millions of everyday Australians so working Australians can retire in dignity with income from super.

These investment decisions are always made independently of governments – for very good reason.

All policymakers have a sacred duty to keep Australians’ super strong and maintain trust in the super system.

The retirement incomes of millions of everyday working Australians right across the country depend on politicians not stuffing it up.

Super Members Council CEO Misha Schubert: “Comments like these are ill-informed and ill-advised. Super funds invest completely independently of Governments for very good reason – they invest only in the best financial interests of their members.”

“The role of super is to deliver the strongest possible investment returns for members.  It is not the job of super funds to solve other policy problems – nor should it ever be.”

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Misha Schubert

The Super Members Council says yesterday’s Intergenerational Report confirms super is helping more Australians fund their retirement and reducing the burden on taxpayers to support an ageing population – highlighting why policies that treat super like an ATM would make Australians poorer.

The report projects spending on the Age Pension will fall from 2.3 per cent of GDP today to 1.8 per cent by 2066, while the proportion of people above pension age relying on government income support is projected to fall from 66 per cent to 52 per cent.

Compellingly, these projections come even as the number of Australians above Age Pension age is expected to double to around nine million.

By comparison, the GDP pension burden in other OECD economies is estimated to be 10 per cent in the United Kingdom, 8 per cent in Canada, 7 per cent in New Zealand, and 6 per cent in the United States.

“Australia is getting older, but thanks to super, our Age Pension costs are projected to fall rather than rise. That’s an extraordinary achievement and something very few countries can match,” says the Council’s CEO Misha Schubert.

Since the last Intergenerational Report in 2023, the Super Guarantee has risen from 11% to 12%. The Council’s modelling shows the 0.5 percentage point increase last year alone could see a typical 30‑year-old retire with $22,000 more in super. Taken together with the full increase from 9% to 12% over the past decade, it could add up to $132,000 in extra superannuation savings by retirement.

The report should also serve as a warning against any policy proposals that weaken super by allowing Australians to withdraw their retirement savings early and lose decades of compound returns.

The Council’s modelling shows One Nation’s proposal to allow workers to divert one quarter of their employer’s compulsory super contributions into current spending would leave a median full-time worker around $25,000 worse off in retirement after just three years, while forcing taxpayers to fund an additional $14,000 in Age Pension costs over the lifetime of a median worker who used the proposal.

“Any policies that allow Australians to raid their super will make Australians poorer and fuel inflation, quickly wiping out the value of any super you withdraw. It will also leave taxpayers on the hook for up to double the amount of super that’s taken out,” add Ms. Schubert.

“It’s a double whammy – stoking inflation with early super withdrawals would make cost-of-living pressures even worse for battling Australians – and the bigger bill to taxpayers would mean less money to fund services battling households rely on – hospitals, medicines, schools, roads, and drought and flood relief.”

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Misha Schubert

The Super Members Council has this week relaunched a powerful education initiative on screens, billboards and socials that reminds everyday Australians about the importance of their super to their retirement.

The high-impact message, first launched in March this year, is now back out in the community to help Australians better understand how their super works and why it is worth protecting.

Super Members Council CEO Misha Schubert said while 80% of Australians say that super will be crucial to their financial security in retirement, three quarters of today’s workforce were not in jobs when super was first legislated – and they want to learn more about how to keep their super strong.

“We can see in the data that Australians who are engaged with their super make better financial decisions, feel more confident about their retirement, and have a greater appreciation of the value Australia’s super system delivers to them and millions of their fellow Australians.”

“Our goal is simple: help Australians understand the extraordinary value of their super in their lives, because when people understand it, they are far more likely to look after it and keep it strong.”

“As Australians better understand the benefits their super delivers in their retirement, they become more confident about their retirement and they also gain a deeper understanding of the importance of strong policy safeguards that protect their super,” Ms Schubert said.

The initiative was informed by research (Pyxis, 2025) showing engagement with super is one of the strongest drivers of positive retirement behaviours, outweighing factors such as gender, income, education and home ownership.

The creative will run nationally across streaming television, outdoor advertising, social media and digital channels. In the latest phase, it will further strengthen its audience reach among women and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, including Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese-speaking Australians, who research shows are often less engaged with super.

It is designed as a long-term program running over years to further strengthen people’s engagement with their super.

The first phase ran from March to June 2026 and established the Golden Super Goose as a powerful creative concept to help Australians, particularly younger Australians, understand and value their super.

The initiative’s first phase reached Australians at scale, generating more than 267 million impressions, driving almost one million visits to its website, and achieving 40% recall, putting it near the top 5% of campaigns in financial services.

Exposure to the campaign was associated with improvements across all super attitudes and behaviours. Among Australians who saw the initiative:

72% took at least one positive action with their super, 29 percentage points above benchmark
84% said they felt motivated to grow their super, 9 percentage points above benchmark
79% said they wanted to engage more with their super, 8 percentage points above benchmark
86% agreed policies that protect super are a good idea, 5 percentage points above benchmark.
“Australians were more likely to review their fees, check investments, make additional contributions, seek advice from their fund and consolidate accounts, after seeing the initiative,” said Ms Schubert.

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Misha Schubert

The Super Members Council says the latest superannuation performance test data released by APRA today highlights the importance and urgency of expanding test coverage to include all platform products and tackle fee gaming that masks warning signals to Australians in underperforming options.

The Council has consistently supported a strong performance test that covers all savings-phase super products as a crucial protection for all Australians against underperformance.

“The performance test is doing what it was created to do: weed out underperforming super products and funds and ensure hard-working Australians super savings are working hard for them,” says the Council’s CEO Misha Schubert.

Yet, concerningly, around 47% of assets in APRA-regulated super funds – including many products on the newer super ‘platforms’ – are still not covered by the performance test, creating a gaping safety hole in consumer safeguards and transparency for millions of Australians.

“Right now, you’ve still got millions of consumers who are essentially flying blind, not knowing whether their super is meeting the performance benchmark that applies across the rest of the system.”

“That’s a giant hole in consumer safety — where your retirement savings are invested shouldn’t determine whether or not you’re protected by basic performance checks.”

These holes in test coverage are alarming when performance test data shows 42% of covered platform products by asset value only passed the performance test by less than 0.1%.

Persistent fee gaming can mask important safety signals to consumers that they are in a product that is not delivering them strong investment returns – and continues to occur despite APRA warnings last year.

These current gaps leave some members without clear, comparable performance information depending on where and how they invest their retirement savings – when every Australian deserves high standards of safety and transparency on the performance of their super.

The Council has also highlighted the need to strengthen the test’s integrity to end fee gaming risks.

Under the current settings, administration fees are assessed over the most recent 12 months, compared to a 10‑year horizon for investment performance. That mismatch opens the door to tactical fee gaming at year’s end which can mask the fact that a super product is delivering poor returns.

Overall, Australians in profit-to-member funds continued to see strong performance from their funds, with more than 60% of products by share of member accounts and assets outperforming the benchmark by 0.5% or more. Fewer than 5% of retail products by member accounts and assets achieved this.

For products in retirement phase, the Council backs the development of a bespoke retirement quality filter to ensure comparable consumer protections on performance.

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Misha Schubert

The Super Members Council has welcomed the Government’s announcement of an integrated package of consumer protection reforms to stop disasters like the Shield and First Guardian collapses, which cost 12,000 Australians more than $1.2 billion in retirement savings.

SMC said this package was “one of the most important consumer safety reforms in a decade, closing safety gaps and raising standards and accountability on those who manage Australians’ super.”

“A world-class system requires world-class safeguards for consumers. These reforms will go a long way to making all Australians’ super safer. We look forward to working with Government and Parliament to make them as strong as possible,” said SMC CEO Misha Schubert.

“The Government should be commended on its extensive consultation process following the high-profile collapses, in which lead-generation businesses used clickbait ads and cold calls to lure Australians out of safe, high-performing mainstream super funds and switched them into high-risk structures.”

SMC welcomed Wednesday’s commitments to:

• Tighten controls on lead generation practices that previously channelled consumers into risky super and investment products.
• Push ahead with the long-promised Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms to expand access to safe, affordable financial advice.
• Strengthen scrutiny and oversight of advice fees deducted from Australians’ super accounts.
• Strengthen obligations on super ‘platform’ funds.

On the overall package of reform, SMC CEO Misha Schubert said, “Every responsible leader right across the Parliament and the super and advice systems has a duty to the Shield and First Guardian victims to fix the safety gaps,” she said.

“Those disasters can’t be dismissed as the misconduct of a few bad actors. They exposed weaknesses in the safeguards framework that made the misconduct possible and lost people’s life savings.”

“However, the proposed changes to the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort fall short by unfairly shifting the costs of financial misconduct onto millions of everyday Australians with their retirement savings in safe, mainstream super funds who were not involved in the collapses.”

Lead generation

SMC said stopping harmful lead generation in super was one of the most crucial reforms.

While a total ban on lead generation would be the best approach, licensing lead generators and holding advice licensees to account for the conduct of lead generators is a step forward. Two of the lead generators involved in the Shield and first Guardian cases were licensed.

“Stronger controls are clearly needed when you look at how people exploited loopholes in the anti-hawking laws.” Ms Schubert said.

“We need to end clickbait advertising, engineered sales funnels that harvest people’s contact details, and call centres that lure Australians into high-risk arrangements.”

Delivering Better Financial Outcomes

SMC said it was pleasing to see the Government acknowledge that the long-promised financial advice reforms are an essential part of the consumer safety package.

“Super members ask every day, ‘Do I have enough to retire on?’ It’s a simple question that they expect their fund to be able to answer. The challenge is making that available at scale.

“This announcement gives Australians access to simple, trusted intra-fund advice in retirement, delivered by their own super fund, to help them make better decisions and reduce the likelihood they are driven into the hands of risky schemes and questionable actors.”

“A New Class of Adviser also has a role to play in expanding Australians’ access to advice via their own super fund, helping millions more people get the guidance they need, when they need it.”

Best Interest Duty

The Best Interest Duty is a critical member safeguard and can coexist with scaled advice. This crucial consumer protection should not be weakened or watered down.

Weakening the Best Interest Duty would expose members to exactly the kinds of harm these reforms are meant to prevent. It’s a consumer safeguard worth protecting.

Advice fees

SMC also welcomed stronger oversights of advice fee deductions from super accounts.

“Financial advice can help Australians build better retirements. But when advice fees are deducted directly from retirement savings, there must be strong and consistent controls to ensure those fees are always fair and reasonable, that people’s super isn’t eroded by large fees, and that the advice is always in the member’s best interests.”

“These reforms will empower regulators and lift obligations on trustees to ensure advice fees are value for money and restore confidence that retirement savings are being protected.”

Platform accountability

SMC said stronger obligations for super ‘platform’ products to hold them to the same high standards as mainstream super funds would help close long-standing inconsistencies in consumer protections.

“Australians deserve the same safety, accountability, and governance standards across the entire super system, wherever their super is invested.”

“We welcome new APRA powers to set sufficient capital requirements for some platform trustees, coupled with new ASIC powers to direct trustees to compensate members in a collapse.”

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Misha Schubert

Millions of everyday Australians value their world-class super system and take a dim view of any politicians seeking to undermine it.

Australians value super because they can see it working. They watch their super balances and retirement incomes growing. They know it delivers life-changing retirement savings for their future.

“Australians love their super – and retirees especially love their super,” said Super Members Council CEO Misha Schubert.

“Their clear message to all politicians is this: don’t stuff up our super.”

Recent surveys of everyday Australians show:

• 78% of Australians say super will be critical to funding their wellbeing in retirement (Pyxis, May 2026).
• 84% of Australians do not support letting people withdraw their super whenever they want (Pyxis, May 2026).
• 88% of older Australians are concerned about early access policies, saying super should be preserved for retirement (National Seniors Australia, July 2025).
• 76% of older Australians say they would not have saved enough without compulsory super (National Seniors Australia, July 2025).

The secret to super’s success is simple fundamentals: it’s compulsory, universal, preserved, and favourably taxed.

That’s why Australia’s retirement system is the envy of the world. And it’s why super has driven significant growth in wealth for middle Australia, with wealth beyond the family home having risen 196% in wage-adjusted terms over the last 20 years (2002-2022).

Any move to dismantle compulsory super would make Australians poorer, push more people onto the Age Pension, and saddle future generations with a bigger tax bill.

A 30-year-old who withdrew $20,000 from their super today would retire with around $93,000 less because of lost compound investment returns.

Australians would also pay more tax if politicians seek to weaken early release settings. Any money taken out of super early would be taxed at standard income tax rates, not at the concessional tax rate of 15% on super for most people.

Breaking open super would also force Australian super funds to invest differently due to shorter investment timeframes. That would damage the long-term returns for all Australians with super – meaning Australians who keep their super intact would have up to $246,200 less at retirement.

And more Australians would end up relying on the Age Pension, adding an estimated $75 billion to $85 billion in extra costs to taxpayers.

Australia is one of the few countries in the world where Age Pension costs are falling as a share of the economy. Weakening compulsory super would reverse decades of progress.

Australians built this system to deliver all working Australians dignity in retirement.

Politicians should not adopt policies that would tear it down.

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Misha Schubert

Australians are turning to artificial intelligence to help them understand their super and prepare for retirement, with new research revealing they’re doing so because they currently can’t access affordable guidance and financial advice from safe and trusted sources.

Research by RepTrak commissioned by the Super Members Council found:

• two-thirds of Australians had either already used AI for super and retirement information – or would consider doing so
• more than one in three Australians have already used tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to obtain information about super and retirement
• among those who have used AI, it is most used to learn the basics, ask questions and compare options,
• while more broadly, most Australians expressed concerns about privacy, security and accuracy and would prefer speaking to a human about sensitive personal financial information.

The RepTrak findings suggest Australians are embracing AI as a convenient and accessible source of information but remain cautious about relying on it for major financial decisions.

Super Members Council CEO Misha Schubert said the research highlighted a huge and growing need for affordable, trusted financial guidance which outdated laws prevent people’s own trusted super fund from being able to deliver to them.

“Australians are increasingly turning to AI because they are looking for simple, accessible and affordable help to understand their super and retirement options,” she said.

“But people are also telling us they really don’t want to rely on AI alone. They want trusted sources of information, strong consumer safeguards, and access to human support and reassurance when making financial decisions that will affect their future.”

The research found nearly half of Australians would verify AI-generated information by checking directly with their super fund, while many would also seek confirmation from government websites, financial advisers or other professionals before acting on the information.

Ms Schubert said the findings reinforced the need for Government to urgently legislate its long-promised Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms – first pledged more than three years ago – to make it easier for Australians to access safe, trusted, simple, affordable financial advice.

“Australians shouldn’t have their advice options limited to only expensive full-service comprehensive financial advice on the one hand or the Wild West of unregulated AI tools on the other, with nothing in between to serve the needs of ‘the missing middle’,” she said.

“The rise of AI highlights the urgent need for more accessible sources of trusted financial guidance. Australians deserve access to safe, affordable and reliable advice that helps them make informed decisions about their retirement.”

“Legislating the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms will help more Australians get the guidance they so desperately need and want from trusted professionals and institutions with strong consumer protections.”

The research also found strong consumer interest in AI tools designed and delivered by trusted super experts, suggesting Australians are open to technology playing a greater role in financial education when backed by credible organisations, clear oversight and reliable information.

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Misha Schubert

Yesterday’s revised estimate of this year’s skyrocketing bill for the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR) confirms the scheme is now being flooded by a surge in unpaid compensation orders from a string of recent financial advice and managed investment scheme failures.

The updated estimate for this year has risen from $137.5 million to $198.1 million, driven largely by continuing fallout from Dixon Advisory and the first tranche of claims linked to the Shield and First Guardian collapses. The scale of the new forecast once again highlights the utmost urgency for the Government to legislate its interlocking consumer safety reforms to stop devastating losses like these in the first place.

“A tsunami of unpaid compensation orders is now flooding the scheme,” said Super Members Council CEO Misha Schubert. “This highlights the absolute urgency of the need for stronger laws to protect consumers from these types of devastating harms in the first place, and an equally urgent need to enable super funds to deliver more safe, trusted financial advice to their own members.”

There is an urgent need to push forward with long promised Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms to expand access to affordable financial advice. Each day of delay is a day that leaves Australians exposed to safety risks, with the affordable advice gap making consumers more vulnerable to lead generation and high‑pressure sales to switch into riskier schemes.

“Prevention is always better than clean-up. Nothing short of large-scale consumer safety reforms that comprehensively lift the bar on consumer safety will stop continuous flooding of the scheme.”

Bold reform is crucial to protect millions of Australian consumers from catastrophic harms like these – and to ensure the survival of a true ‘last resort’ compensation scheme for those who will continue to need it in future.

The Council has consistently supported the principle of a compensation scheme for victims of financial misconduct while pushing hard for those responsible for misconduct to pay those costs, instead of the bill being sent to millions of low-paid Australians.

Large-scale failures such as Shield and First Guardian are already generating vast compensation costs far beyond what was originally anticipated when the scheme was established. If safe, highly regulated parts of the system foot the bill for unrelated misconduct elsewhere, it can only further incentivise misconduct.

The compensation system is now under severe strain, with major financial collapses exposing structural weaknesses in how losses are attributed and funded. Many of the recent unpaid compensation orders for losses involved victims investing via SMSFs and super platforms.

The Council is calling on the Government to urgently:

• Scrap the proposed levy waterfall model in its CSLR consultation paper, which risks embedding cost‑shifting rather than fixing the underlying problems.
• Instead align the scheme’s funding levies more closely with the sources of consumer harm, in a model that ensures that higher-risk sectors from which misconduct has arisen bear the costs.
• Rule out an expansion of CSLR levies to safe, well-regulated APRA‑regulated super funds whose members already fund their own operational risk reserves.
• Include Managed Investment Schemes (MIS) in the scheme’s funding base.
• Adopt clear, consistent treatment of SMSFs, including:
  • excluding SMSFs from both the levy and compensation scheme, or
  • if included, requiring mandatory and universal participation in funding (no opt‑in or opt‑out)
• Limit CSLR compensation to actual losses only, removing payments for hypothetical or “but‑for” investment returns.

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Misha Schubert

Australia’s frontline carers are being made poorer in retirement because they miss out on super when caring intensively for loved ones, often for years, a new report from the Super Members Council shows.

The report, Unfinished business: Fixing gaps in the Super Guarantee, finds more than one million Australians still miss out on super simply because of who they are or the work they do.

This includes part-time workers under the age of 18 and domestic workers employed in private homes (cleaners, nannies and housekeepers) who work less than 30 hours a week, and Australians who step out of paid work to care for loved ones. Women are disproportionately harmed by these exclusions.

“Australia’s super system is meant to be universal, but today more than a million Australians are still missing out on the same guarantee as 17 million of their fellow Australians – simply because of their age, the work they do or who they are. That’s just not fair,” says the Council’s CEO Misha Schubert.

Currently, Australians who step out of the paid workforce to deliver constant intensive care to a loved one – care that would otherwise cost taxpayers vastly more to deliver with Government services – are being made poorer in retirement due to the loss of super they would otherwise earn. More than 70% are women.

Paying the 12% Super Guarantee on the Carer Payment would deliver an average $3,072 a year in super to 334,000 unpaid carers in the years they are delivering vital caregiving.

For a typical 45-year-old carer, this could boost their super by $45,000 more by retirement – due to compound returns – and mean less pressure on the Age Pension for taxpayers.

The highly means-tested Carer Payment is a modest payment that partially replaces someone’s income when they step away from paid work for at least six months to care constantly for a person with disability or medical condition, or a frail elderly person with intense care needs.

Like paid parental leave prior to 2025, this payment does not yet include super.

Women are three times more likely to have to take on informal caregiving demands than men. More than one-in seven women face primary caregiving demands between the ages 45 and 65, reducing their earnings by up to $40,000 a year.

The Council urges all policymakers to commit to paying super on the Carer Payment, arguing it is a practical and fair step forward to recognise the economic value of unpaid care.

While carers deliver essential support that would otherwise fall to the health and aged care systems, they are not treated the same as other forms of essential work when it comes to super.

The report also highlights gaps for gig economy workers, warning many Australians in app-based and contractor roles continue to miss out on super because they fall outside traditional employment definitions.

Creating a pathway for super in gig work would mean around 184,000 gig workers would receive an average of $2,220 a year in super — supporting a typical young gig worker to retire with around $38,000 more in super.

The Council continues to push hard to end the unfair super exclusion of part-time under-18 workers – an issue it has campaigned on heavily over the past year – and for domestic workers doing less than 30 hours a week for one employer in private homes as cleaners, housekeepers and nannies.

The denial of super for under-18s if they work less than 30 hours a week for their employer costs 515,000 teen workers nationally $405 million this financial year.

The research also shows around 37,000 domestic workers missed out on super in 2026‑27, and the overwhelming majority – 86 % – of these low-paid workers are women.

On average, each of these workers misses out on almost $4,000 a year in super, amounting to nearly $150 million nationwide, with women missing out on about $126 million in a single year.

Universal super coverage for all workers is critical to ensure a fair and effective retirement system, particularly for workers who are already at higher risk of being left behind — including young people, women, and those in insecure or part-time work.

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Misha Schubert

New Super Members Council analysis of recently released Australian Tax Office tax data shows Australians’ super balances are growing, which means more money in retirement income for millions of everyday Aussies.

But it also reveals the gender super gap is no longer closing among Australians on the runway to retirement in their early 60s, prompting renewed calls for urgent action.

In 2023/24, the super balances of millions of everyday Australians grew by 5.5% overall.

Despite super being a key driver of growing prosperity that is transforming retirement for millions of everyday Aussies, more needs to be done to fix the gender super gap.

While the gender super gap continues to narrow for younger working women, for Australians aged 60-64, concerningly the gender super gap now stands at 26% – compared to 20.5% in 2016-17.

Median super balances for Australians in this pre-retirement age bracket grew 7.4% for men, to about $236,000, and 7.0% for women, to about $175,000.

Women’s median balances still sit below men’s in every state. The gap is narrowest in the ACT (94%) and widest in WA (69%). Nationally, women’s median super balances are 20% lower than men’s (see table).

And while women make extra personal contributions at a higher rate than men (11.6% compared to 10.0%) and at a slightly higher average amount ($28,900 against $28,100) they still retire with 26% less in super.

“Super balances are growing, which is great news for millions of Australians’ retirement incomes — but women are still retiring tens of thousands of dollars behind men, and that gap must be fixed,” says Super Members Council CEO Misha Schubert.

The Council commends the Government on a series of major reforms in recent years to start to close the gender super gap such as payday super laws due to start on 1 July, paying super on paid parental leave, and lifting the Low-Income Super Tax Offset (LISTO). All three reforms will make a big difference for women.

But despite this progress, men’s super will continue to outpace women’s without further steps to tackle the gender super gap including by scrapping an outdated exclusion of part-time under 18 workers from being guaranteed super – an exclusion that particularly hurts young women.

That outdated law is recreating the gender super gap all over again for the next generation of young Australian women – our daughters and grand-daughters – from the very start of their working lives.

For older women, a recent Council report finds many common later-in-life events such as separation, unpaid caregiving for older relatives, and family violence are significantly more likely to force women into early retirement or part-time work. Those life events dramatically erode women’s ability to save for retirement – and can result in women having up to $95,000 less in super by the time they retire.

The Council has consistently called for further reforms to narrow the gender gap, including:

• Close gendered loopholes in super coverage by paying super for all workers including nannies, housekeepers and carers, and for all workers aged under 18.
• Remove barriers to women’s workforce participation by boosting access to childcare and aged care and strengthen workplace flexibility.
• Enabling fairer splitting of super in divorce settlements whether or not they are handled in a court.
• Boost Commonwealth Rent Assistance to give immediate help, and invest in new social housing over the medium-term, to protect vulnerable older women who are renting or at risk of homelessness.

Australians’ super balances are expected to grow further in coming years thanks to the Super Guarantee rate reaching 12% last year.

The 0.5 percentage point increase last year alone could see a typical 30-year-old retire with $22,000 more in super. Taken together with the full increase from 9% to 12% over the past decade, it could add up to $132,000 in extra superannuation savings by retirement for your average working Australian.

“Crucial recent reforms like payday super laws, paying super on paid parental leave, and boosting support for low‑income working people have made big strides forward for women — but this data confirms that we need to fix the remaining gaps in super coverage so no woman is left behind,” Ms Schubert said.

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