Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) | Hansard source

I move:

That this House notes that:

(1) superannuation belongs to Australians for their retirement, and as such death benefit and other payouts should be processed without delay by superannuation companies;

(2) in March last year, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced it was taking legal action against one of Australia's largest industry funds over delayed processing of nearly 7,000 death benefit claims, according to proceedings filed in the Federal Court;

(3) ASIC's media release said the superannuation giant was taking between 'four months and four years' to payout death benefits;

(4) back in 2023, complaints to the ombudsman about delays in releasing super to a surviving spouse or other beneficiaries more than tripled; and

(5) in January 2025, the Government announced plans to introduce mandatory service standards for superannuation funds, in response to a growing public backlash against the industry, particularly over its poor handling of death benefits, yet more than a year later, there has been no further progress.

This motion seeks to right a grave injustice to thousands of Australians. Superannuation is money that belongs to Australians for their retirement. The same goes for death benefits which are held by super funds and distributed to a person's nominee or dependants on their passing, Where the person has a terminal illness, they can be eligible for the early release of those funds as well.

I've assisted constituents who have waited over a year to access their own money. In one case, a constituent approached me after her late husband passed from a terminal illness. He had wanted to access the early payout of his super, which he was entitled to do. He wanted to say to his children, while he was still alive, 'Kids, I know this is not going to make everything better, but it is something.' AustralianSuper messed this man around in his dying weeks, not replying to his emails, transferring him from call centre operator to call centre operator and hanging up on him, depriving this father and his family of that final conversation. To make matters worse, his widow was then stonewalled for eight months to access her own money. The amount of money we're talking about is such that, if she'd stuck that in the bank over that period of time, it would have yielded about $8½ thousand.

Irene Thomas is another constituent of mine. Her battle was with Cbus. After I intervened on Irene's behalf, the money was paid to her, but that was over a year later. Irene recently told Lucas Baird from the Australian Financial Review about her wait to access her own money and said:

What would have happened if I were destitute?

There are over 4,000 Australians waiting up to four years to access their own money. One of the first things I did when assisting these constituents on the issue was to check what the mandated minimum payout timeframe was with the regulator, ASIC. Surely, there must be a timeframe in which people can access their own money. It turns out that, according to ASIC, there is not. ASIC just says it should be 'as soon as practicable'. In other words, there is no mandated timeframe. Well, there should be.

In January 2025, the federal government announced plans to introduce mandatory service standards for superannuation funds, especially over their poor handling of death benefits. Eighteen months of 'soon' is too long for many Australians who are still waiting. These are not isolated cases. There are thousands of Australians who have been waiting years to access their own money, because big super has made an art form out of frustrating every effort at every turn—transferring calls, not answering emails and challenging every document. In many cases, we are talking about older women who, while navigating the grief of losing their spouse, have to jump through every obstacle imaginable just to access their own money.

There was a light-handed industry led code of conduct implemented a couple of years ago, around the time when complaints to the ombudsman tripled. Clearly, it's not working. Last year, ASIC also announced legal action against AustralianSuper, who has kept 7,000 of its customers waiting years to access their own money. The ASIC claims-handling review has released a landmark report revealing that 78 per cent of reviewed death benefit claim files were delayed by processing issues within the trustee's control. That's important because, while we all understand some cases have complexities that need to be worked through, this shows that nearly 80 per cent of delayed cases are in fact straightforward.

The second point I wish to raise is this. It has also been revealed that a fund may be required to pay death benefits to a person who used domestic violence against the deceased. This is desperately unfair. It is cruel. It is wrong. As part of its December 2024 report into financial abuse, an insidious form of domestic violence, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services recommended that superannuation laws be amended to provide a mechanism so that a beneficiary who has perpetrated domestic or family abuse, including financial abuse and domestic violence, against someone who has died as a result of domestic violence related suicide—suicide of the superannuation account holder—be declared an invalid beneficiary. I've read real-life examples of this. They are tragic.

It's time big super was held to account, and it's well past time this government was compelled to act.

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