Survey respondents demand simplification of super

By Mike Taylor

THE Federal Government should use its majority in both houses of Parliament to substantially simplify Australia’s superannuation laws.

That is the bottom line of an exclusive survey conducted by Money Management’s sister publication SuperReview earlier this month, with 93.3 per cent of more than 230 respondents making it clear that the existing regulatory environment is too complex and is acting as an impediment to increasing retirement savings for Australians.

What should be most disturbing to the Government, however, is the fact that the survey was directly targeted at superannuation practitioners, but 76.4 per cent of those people said they did not fully understand Australia’s superannuation laws.

In fact, asked to grade the level of their understanding, only 14.4 per cent of respondents claimed to have an excellent understanding, while 44.4 per cent said they had a good understanding.

On the negative side of the equation, 4.2 per cent of respondents said they did not understand the superannuation laws, while 37 per cent acknowledged they had only a fair understanding.

The survey found that an overwhelming number of respondents (94.6 per cent) believed the existing laws and regulations were simply too complex, with 86.1 per cent believing this complexity was acting to discourage superannuation savings.