Inquiry into Treasury Laws Amendment (Your Future, Your Super) Bill 2021

This submission is being made by The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW).

NFAW is dedicated to promoting and protecting the interests of Australian women, including intellectual, cultural, political, social, economic, legal, industrial and domestic spheres, and ensuring that the aims and ideals of the women’s movement and its collective wisdom are handed on to new generations of women. NFAW is a feminist organisation, independent of party politics and working in partnership with other women’s organisations.

It is now widely acknowledged that the different elements of the retirement income system affect women differently to men. The design of the superannuation guarantee system is inherently flawed as it is based on lifetime income. This has always limited the superannuation accrued by casual and part time workers, of which a high proportion are women, and this will be exacerbated by current trends in the “gig economy”.

One of our criticisms of the design of the superannuation system is that does not meet the needs of women, having been designed at a time when men worked at one career throughout their life, while women were less likely to participate in the workforce.

This submission responds to the terms of reference through a gender lens.

To the extent that the proposed measures are likely to increase superannuation balances for lower paid workers we would support those measures; however we do have some significant concerns over the need for some of these measures and the potential effects depending on how they are implemented.

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