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.

The post Hands off Australians’ super appeared first on AdviserVoice.

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.

The post Affordable advice reforms urgent as Australians turn to AI advice, with major risks appeared first on AdviserVoice.

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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Misha Schubert

The Super Members Council says the Government should not hand the bill for the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort to millions of low-paid Australians, warning it would be a dangerous departure from both the scheme’s original risk-based design controls and its purpose as a genuine last resort.

“This should be a fair, sustainable compensation scheme of genuine last resort that doesn’t double-tax hardworking Australians in safe, well-regulated parts of the super system — not one that socialises the cost of financial misconduct to the nation’s lowest-wage earners instead of holding the people responsible to account,” says the Council’s CEO Misha Schubert.

In a submission on Treasury’s proposed reforms, the Council highlights that the scheme was originally intended to compensate victims of financial misconduct only as a very last resort after all other options to recover money had been exhausted.

But it has rapidly become overwhelmed in its first few years by the scale of collapses and misconduct in higher-risk pockets of financial services.

The collapse of one financial advice firm alone eclipsed several years’ worth of the original actuarial predictions for the scheme’s total costs – and a string of others has since followed. Soon thousands more claims from the Shield and First Guardian collapses will start to make their way onto the scheme.

A key design principle for the scheme at the outset was that the part of the financial system from which the consumer harms and unpaid compensation orders had arisen should bear the costs of funding it.

It would be a clear breach of that principle to expand the levy onto unrelated sectors that have not caused the underlying misconduct, and to force millions of everyday Australians – including the nation’s lowest-paid workers in safe, highly regulated profit-to-member super funds – to pay it.

Spreading surging costs to unrelated sub‑sectors would further embed and escalate moral hazard. If safe, highly regulated parts of the system foot the bill for unrelated misconduct elsewhere, it can only further escalate risky behaviour, weaken accountability, and incentivise misconduct and poor practices.

SMC’s submission highlights the unfairness of what occurred last December – when the Government forced 12 million Australians in safe, well-run super funds to pay a one-off special levy to fund the skyrocketing 2025 compensation bill but Australians with SMSFs did not pay.

The current reform consultation now canvasses a new levy ‘waterfall’, in which a levy would cascade down levels in the financial system starting with sectors closest to the causes of harm – but then also permanently pull parts of the safe mainstream super system into the scheme’s third tier of funding.

It also proposes to require everyday Australians in mainstream super funds to permanently pay the levy yet puts forward  the idea of giving SMSFs an opt-in/opt-out choice on whether to pay the levy and be able to claim.

Consistent with the principle that Australians in APRA-regulated superannuation funds should not be part of the scheme, the Council’s view is that SMSFs should similarly be excluded — from both the levy and the ability to claim on the scheme. Both must be treated equally. SMSFs should not be afforded an opt-in/opt-out choice if 12.5 million Australians in mainstream super funds do not have that same choice.

“It would be deeply unjust for the Government to compulsorily force millions of the nations lowest-paid workers to pay a levy for this scheme they will never claim on but then give wealthier Australians with SMSFs a choice to opt in or opt out that no-on else gets,” Ms Schubert said.

The compensation system is now under severe strain, with major financial collapses exposing structural weaknesses in how losses are attributed and funded. In its first few years, the scheme has been flooded by a tsunami of unpaid compensation orders for losses caused by collapsed financial advice firms and managed investment schemes, with the victims often investing via SMSFs and super platforms.

To make the scheme more sustainable and restore it to its original purpose of truly being a mechanism of last resort, the Council is calling on the Government to:

• Scrap the proposed levy waterfall model in the 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 funding base, to better align costs with where risks originate.
• 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.

“The scheme is now being flooded by a tsunami of compensation bills that should have been paid by the collapsed firms and schemes who lost Australians’ life savings and then left them in the lurch,” said Super Members Council CEO Misha Schubert.

“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. Merely tinkering around the edges on safety will only lead to more Shield and First Guardian style collapses.”

——–

The opinions above are those of the author in their capacity as spokesperson for Super Members Council of Australia (SMC). SMC, the authors and all other persons involved in the preparation of this information are thereby not giving legal, financial or professional advice for individual persons or organisations.

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Misha Schubert

Yesterday marks one month until the start of payday super – a reform that has very strong backing from the Australian public, new research has found.

An Ideally survey of more than 1,000 Australians for the Super Members Council found near universal support for payday super, with only 2% of people opposed.

“Australians right across the country overwhelmingly back payday super, because they want more visibility and confidence that their super is being paid properly – on time, every time, in full,” says the Council’s CEO Misha Schubert.

The Australian Taxation Office has said it will adopt a graduated approach to enforcement as businesses transition to the new system in the first 12 months, focusing its resources on areas of highest risk.

From July 1, 2026, payday super laws will require all employers to pay super at the same time as wages – instead of once every three months. Contributions need to reach the employee’s super fund within 7 business days of payday

The reform will be a gamechanger to tackle unpaid super, and 62% of survey respondents say payday super must start on July 1 as planned.

Recent analysis by the Council revealed the scale of the scourge of unpaid super, finding Aussie workers were underpaid a shocking total of $24.4 billion over the five years to 2023.

More than 70% of people surveyed agreed it will help them keep track of whether their employers are paying their super correctly, and more than half said they will now check their super more regularly.

The Council has long championed payday super laws as a key reform to help stamp out unpaid super, coupled with more proactive recovery of unpaid super by the ATO.

The Council’s modelling shows a worker being underpaid $1,730 in super in 2022-23, and a typical affected worker could be more than $30,000 worse off at retirement due to the loss of compounding investment returns.

Unpaid super disproportionately hurts vulnerable groups. Among the hardest hit workers from unpaid super are women, who already retire with a quarter less super than men.

Younger workers, and low-income earners are also at risk: one in two workers who earn less than $25,000 a year have unpaid super entitlements.

The new laws will also make it much easier for employers to stay on top of their cashflow and worker entitlements, and level the playing field for all the businesses already doing the right thing by their staff.

With digital payroll and single touch payroll reporting systems now available to all employers, around 40% of businesses already pay super more frequently than quarterly.

ATO data shows that since payday super was announced, around 19,000 more employers are paying super more frequently than quarterly – a 2.4 percentage point increase in the share of employers doing so.

Ahead of July 1, the Council is urging employers to take immediate, practical steps to get their systems ready.

“Payday super will be a big change for some employers that will make a very big difference for the workers they employ,” Ms Schubert said.

“For employers making this transition, we appreciate the scale of the task and that’s why we support the ATO’s graduated approach on enforcement in the first 12 months.”

“Unpaid super is a silent pay cut that costs Australian workers nearly $6 billion each year. This is money Australians have earned but never been paid – and it’s leaving millions much poorer at retirement.”

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Misha Schubert

The Super Members Council has called for a comprehensive set of consumer safety reforms to create a level playing field of universally high standards of governance, accountability and oversight across Australia’s super system to prevent further Shield and First Guardian style collapses.

In its submission to Treasury’s proposed reforms to strengthen consumer safety, the Council urges the Government to act decisively to lift governance and accountability obligations for both platforms and SMSFs to match the high standards that apply for mainstream APRA-regulated super funds.

“Right now, safety gaps in some parts of the super system are being exploited, putting Australians at serious risk of losing the money they’ve worked hard their whole lives to save for retirement,” said Super Members Council CEO Misha Schubert.

“We urgently need to level the playing field and lift protections and accountability in the parts of the system where they are weakest, bringing them up to the same high level as the strong safeguards that apply in mainstream super funds – so that every Australian can have confidence their super is safe, protected and working hard in their best interests.”

Almost 12,000 Australians lost more than $1 billion of their life savings in the Shield and First Guardian collapses, and comprehensive safety reforms are urgently needed to avoid future consumer disasters.

Those cases show how aggressive lead generation practices, high‑pressure sales tactics, conflicted pay incentives and poor oversight can funnel Australians out of safe, high-performing, low-cost, tightly‑regulated super funds and into high-risk, unsafe or unsuitable products such as the collapsed schemes, losing people’s compulsory life savings and undermining trust in super safeguards.

Those failures were not isolated incidents, but an ominous warning sign about serious risks of consumer harm in any part of the super system where governance, accountability and regulatory oversights are weaker.

Access to safe, affordable, high-quality financial advice is also a crucial consumer protection, and a key defence against predatory practices. Each day of delay in the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms 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.

This is particularly important when APRA data shows advice fee deductions from super have doubled over the past five years — growing from $1.464 billion in 2020 to $2.975 billion in 2025, with a sharp $1.1 billion increase in just the past two years, largely concentrated in platform channels.

ASIC’s Report 781 on advice fee charging raised concerns about “inappropriate balance erosion” of members’ retirement savings and pointed to “weaknesses in trustees’ assurance processes” as a key risk factor driving harm.

To protect Australians from more Shield and First Guardian style collapses, the Council is calling for:

• A major uplift in consumer safety protections across the rest of the super system architecture to match the highest APRA‑regulated standards that apply in master trust super funds.
• Urgent legislation to pass the DBFO reforms.
• A ban on conflicted payments and incentives that distort investment decisions and drive harmful switching behaviour. Restrictions should cover any fee, rebate, marketing/support payment, “shelf-space” payment, data/access fee, or other benefit provided directly or indirectly in exchange for platform access.
• Ending “trustee-for-hire” models.
• Stronger governance of platforms, including, mandatory due diligence standards, risk-based holding limits for higher-risk investments and active trustee gatekeeping of products
• Targeted protections at the point of SMSF establishment and switching, including mandatory, standardised warnings when moving to higher-risk settings, instead of proposed cooling off periods.
• Closing the SMSF protection gap, including clear warnings about the loss of consumer protections when leaving APRA-regulated super, mandatory education and knowledge checks for SMSF trustees, equivalent safeguards on advice fee deductions, and minimum balance recommendations.
• Stronger oversight of advice fee deductions, including a requirement for trustee-set fee caps, protections against balance erosion for low balances, and stronger transparency and reporting.
• Better regulator visibility of switching and fund flows, enabling earlier intervention to stop harm.

A recent survey of more than 1,000 Australians found strong public support for the Government to be bold in strengthening consumer protections.

“Millions of low- and middle-income Australians also urgently need the promised DBFO reforms to become law to unlock access to safe, affordable guidance and advice from their own trusted super funds,” Ms Schubert said.

“They are a key consumer protection measure in their own right that will help protect Australians from predatory social media ads and high-pressure sales.”

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