The onus to fix the problems of the super accumulation gap lies solely with the government and not with women, according to Women in Super (WIS) national chair Cate Wood.
Speaking at the WIS Make Super Fair campaign launch, Wood said retirement outcomes for women required an urgent reconsideration of the super system which saw women retire with an average of $85,000 less than men.
“We must do better than a system that sees women retiring with 47 per cent less than men. This is a crisis and unless we act now we will be leaving a tragic legacy for younger women,” she said.
“It is not fair or reasonable to simply tell women to fix the problem themselves. We need to get the basics right.”
Wood also outlined WIS’ policy proposals to increase retirement outcomes for women:
WIS calculated the pay gap between men and women averaged across the past two decades as sitting around 18 per cent, with 40 per cent of older single women living in poverty.
Jim Chalmers has defended changes to the Future Fund’s mandate, referring to himself as a “big supporter” of the sovereign wealth fund, amid fierce opposition from the Coalition, which has pledged to reverse any changes if it wins next year’s election.
In a new review of the country’s largest fund, a research house says it’s well placed to deliver attractive returns despite challenges.
Chant West analysis suggests super could be well placed to deliver a double-digit result by the end of the calendar year.
Specific valuation decisions made by the $88 billion fund at the beginning of the pandemic were “not adequate for the deteriorating market conditions”, according to the prudential regulator.