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Finance Minister Katy Gallagher headlined an expert panel assessing how Australia can close the superannuation gender gap.

Leaders from government, business and the superannuation sector met in Sydney last week to address the barriers affecting women’s financial security throughout their working lives and into retirement.

Finance Minister and Minister for Women Senator Katy Gallagher headlined the Superannuation, Gender Equity and Financial Safety forum, hosted by 91ɫ��Ƭ Sydney, , and .

With millions of Australians expected to retire over the next decade, the forum considered how the $4.4 trillion superannuation system could deliver fairer outcomes for women. Experts discussed the role employers, business leaders and superannuation funds could play in closing the gender gap and strengthening women’s financial futures.

Minister Gallagher said when the economy worked for women, it worked for everybody. “Improving wages is the single biggest thing we can do to improve women’s retirement incomes,” she said. “Obviously the pushback on super is real; it’s always been a political policy area and continues to be so.” 

Minister Gallagher rejected , warning this could leave Australians with less money in retirement.

“The Labor government will continue to protect and ensure that super isn't used for other purposes. We don't support the policy from One Nation to divert 3% of your super into your pay packet. We agree and accept that it sounds quite popular to many, particularly when pressures are on household budgets, but we know that whilst you might get $40 a week more on average, it could be [that you are] $25,000 worse off at retirement.”

Preventing financial abuse

Professor Ann Kayis-Kumar founded the 91ɫ��Ƭ Tax and Business Advisory Clinic in 2019, providing free tax services and community education to help unrepresented, financially vulnerable individuals and small businesses across Sydney and regional NSW. She told the forum more work was needed to invest in prevention, support people during crises and help them recover.

“Sixteen per cent of Australian women are experiencing intimate partner abuse, and that is an unacceptably high number and likely an underestimate,” Prof. Kayis-Kumar said.

“The majority of the female clients that we help at the clinic who come to us with a tax problem are experiencing intimate partner financial abuse.

“Raising awareness is a really key step. Frontline support, being trauma-informed, is a really key step. These are manageable ways to get us to collectively, as a whole, respond to this really insidious problem.”

Chair of CareSuper Linda Scott said the sector must build on its strengths while addressing opportunities for improvement.

“There's no doubt that supporting women and closing that gender pay gap, closing vulnerabilities that they might experience in their lives, is an opportunity for superannuation to improve,” she said.

Ms Scott said stronger partnerships between superannuation funds, government agencies and regulators could help identify members at risk of financial abuse and ensure they received appropriate support.

“Having a framework about that, being able to engage with the Tax Office, with our regulators, to ensure that they're comfortable with the actions that we're taking to both use the evidence to identify members at risk, and then also what we do about that once we identify members at risk.”

Recognising unpaid care

Women in Super is developing a model to recognise the value of unpaid care, which can affect retirement savings when people take time away from paid employment to care for children or family members.

At the forum, the group’s CEO, Jo Kowalczyk, described the issue as critical.

“It’s not that carers have been excluded because of some oversight,” Ms Kowalczyk said. “It’s actually a structural gap within the design of the system itself, and until we close that gap, no amount of tinkering around that is going to mean that women are going to retire into security and safety.

“We’ve been working with four of our member funds and some very clever academics at the University of Sydney and University of New South Wales to develop a model of care credits that translate the economic value of unpaid care into a retirement savings contribution. So that's very exciting. Watch this space.”

The forum was held as part of 91ɫ��Ƭ’s Progress Partners initiative, bringing together industry, government, community organisations and academic experts to solve complex challenges.