The Financial Services Council (FSC) has written to both the Government and the Federal Opposition urging that they agree a bipartisan “purpose” for superannuation and a removal on the pause on the lifting of the superannuation guarantee.
The FSC chief executive, Sally Loane, revealed the letter to Assistant Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, and Shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen, at the same time as pointing out that women were at a particular disadvantage with respect to superannuation with new research conducted by Rice Warner suggesting the average woman would need to contribute 18 per cent to close the gap with their male working counterparts and have a self-funded retirement without recourse to the age pension.
In a keynote address to the FSC annual conference on the Gold Coast this morning, Loane said the current superannuation guarantee rate of 9.5 per cent was simply too low to fund an adequate retirement.
Loane paid tribute to the fact that the Government had committed to no unnecessary or adverse tinkering to superannuation over the life of the current parliament but noted that while it was welcome it did not help address the key issue of helping Australians achieve retirement income self-sufficiency.
Referring to the current superannuation settings, the FSC chief executive said Australia should not be satisfied with locking into a system that “amasses considerable sums but fails to meet its stated objectives”.
Loane said that in the absence of immediate and rapid voluntary contributions the inadequacy of the current system was being extended.
Pointing to Australia’s continuing retirement income savings gap, she said the only time the Rice Warner/FSC research had seen it closing was when the superannuation guarantee was lifted to 12 per cent which meant that the Government’s pause at 9.5 per cent was simply extending the existence of the gap.
Loane called for a full and wide-ranging debate on superannuation, inclusive of whether or not to raise the preservation age.
