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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