First Nations peoples are more likely to miss out on super benefits

ABC NEWS (Australia)

First Nations Australians are frequently locked out of their own superannuation. Research conducted by the 'mob strong debt help' organisation has found only 59 per cent of respondents have internet access and only a quarter have access to my-gov and email.

Transcript

00:00We've managed to identify three main barriers with First Nations peoples trying to access

00:07the superannuation.

00:09The first one is the rigid identification structure that Superfunds have to verify people.

00:15The second barrier is a culturally unsafe process in understanding and accommodating

00:22First Nations consumers, particularly those living in vulnerable circumstances.

00:27Thirdly is that we found that the death benefit system is very, very inadequate, it's very

00:34unreasonably delayed and leaves a lot of people short in trying to be able to find their loved

00:41one's superannuation benefits.

00:42One example we had for one of the case workers was we had this elder, 80 years old, lived

00:48in a station and never had his birth registered, which is a very common instance for a lot of

00:53First Nations consumers.

00:55He just wanted to be able to get his super out for him and his wife.

00:59And he didn't have an email account or a mobile phone account.

01:03And because his date of birth wasn't registered, he had five different dates of birth from his

01:06ID.

01:07And the Superfund didn't really accept that.

01:10And they just kept asking him to provide either his mobile phone account details, his email

01:16account.

01:17They wanted him to provide a proof of utility bill.

01:20But he didn't have a lease, didn't have any of that at all whatsoever.

01:23And yet they still kept assisting from him to still say, well, just give us your birth certificate.

01:29But he doesn't have that.

01:30And so for nine months, his financial counsellor has been trying to be able to help him to try

01:35and get his super out, even sent through 20 authorities to be able to try and get them

01:41to be able to recognise the financial counsellor and yet still hasn't had anything to do with that.

01:46And now we had to be able to lodge the complaint to the Australian Financial Compliance Authority.

01:50And we're still waiting for an answer to that.

01:52This is the money that they've put into account on trust for their benefit.

01:57And yet all of these Superfunds don't really have ways to be able to accommodate client

02:01circumstances, especially when it comes to ID.

02:03We've had another Superfund that was refusing to provide a confirmation of someone's community

02:12ID, was refusing to provide any proof of originality forms.

02:17And when our financial counsellor had tried to be able to press on it, the Superfund treated

02:23it as a, quote, take it or leave it attitude.

02:26So what we're seeing here is a lot of Superfunds are applying a one-size-fits-all approach in

02:32forms of efficiency and trying to be able to look after all their members.

02:35But what we're seeing here now is that we're seeing a very small number, but also an extremely

02:41vulnerable number of First Nations consumers and vulnerable consumers and vulnerable Australians

02:45in not being able to access their own money.

02:48Our report had made a number of recommendations.

02:51The first one is that we want to have financial counsellors to be supported.

02:55Financial counsellors are some of the best stuff professions in the field who help vulnerable

03:00consumers with financial issues, especially for superannuation.

03:04In a lot of remote and rural communities, about 40% of their work is superannuation.

03:10Yet the Superfunds don't make any contributions to the voluntary industry fund with the financial

03:16counselling in Australia.

03:17So we need that to happen.

03:18The second thing we want to have is legislative mandatory standards for Superfunds to follow

03:25in terms of having customer service standards and as well as claims processing standards as

03:32well too.

03:33And thirdly is that we want to be able to have a overhaul and review of our death benefit system.

03:40We find that a lot of people, the only way they can find out their super if they were

03:44to contact the ATO to be able to do that, but the ATO won't listen to them unless they

03:48were to have a grant of probate or a letters of administration, which are court documents

03:53you have to go to court for.

03:55And a lot of people can't afford that.

03:57And also they can't even access that as well too.

03:59We had one client who spent $1,600 just to be able to find out that their loved one

04:04Super only had $30 in it.

04:06So we want to be able to review this.

04:08Okay.

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