Lisa Darmanin (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I agree with Senator Chandler that superannuation is one of the great economic triumphs of our country and should not be politicised. Labor is the party of superannuation, and this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Supporting Choice in Superannuation and Other Measures) Bill 2025, is another step in strengthening a system that delivers on its purpose of providing income for everyday Australians for a dignified retirement.

In 2022-23, a review of the Your Future, Your Super reforms found that employee onboarding software providers were being paid to advertise superannuation products, particularly products associated with the software provider. Some of this activity led to suboptimal outcomes for workers. The legislation before us today will introduce a framework around when and how superannuation fund products can be advertised to employees during the onboarding process to protect workers rights.

Starting a new job is one of the few times many people pause and think about their superannuation. It is not the time for organisations to manipulate the system for paid advertising and business development at the cost of working Australians. This bill amends the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act to streamline the superannuation choice of fund process during an employee onboarding.

Schedule 2 of the bill amends the Corporations Act to impose a ban on advertising superannuation products to employees during onboarding, with certain exceptions. Where an onboarding platform chooses to advertise, it will be required to display an employee's stapled fund, where one exists. Products that can be advertised will be limited to the employee's stapled fund, the employer's default fund and MySuper products that have passed the most recent annual performance test.

To be advertised during onboarding, a MySuper product must have passed the annual superannuation performance test and the person advertising the product must not be related to the fund offering the product. The organisation advertising the MySuper product must have requested an employee stapled fund and provided those details to the employee, should they be available. Any advertisement must also be accompanied by clear and unambiguous disclosures. This is particularly important for workers in high-risk industries, where the consequences of losing insurance can be serious. The 'dangerous occupation' exception allows super funds to elect that members employed in certain high-risk occupations will be provided with insurance—including death, total and permanent disability, and income protection insurance—automatically, regardless of their age or account balance. The purpose of this exception is simple—to make sure that workers in dangerous industries are not left without cover at the point they need it most, particularly young workers and new starters.

That is why choice must be informed choice. If information is unclear, incomplete or presented in a way designed to steer people through marketing tactics, then the system is not supporting genuine choice; it is undermining it. The way choices are framed matters. Ensuring workers receive clear, accurate information helps them make decisions that will genuinely protect their retirement savings and their insurance cover. These safeguards are not theoretical concerns; they reflect the real experiences of workers and the risks they face on the job every day. I want to acknowledge the important advocacy of the ACTU and the Electrical Trades Union, who have consistently highlighted the importance of protecting insurance cover for workers in dangerous occupations.

The proposed changes would also reduce needless duplicate super accounts, which would save Australians from paying multiple sets of fees and help to boost their consolidated investment returns, in line with the broader objectives of super. They would protect employees from being unduly influenced to make uninformed decisions, open appropriate products for their circumstances or unintentionally create duplicate accounts. These are important consumer protection reforms which will better safeguard Australians from conflicted sales practices and employee onboarding platforms and further strengthen the payday super reforms.

I'll make a couple of comments just briefly on stapling. Stapling was introduced as part of the Your Future, Your Super reforms in 2021, alongside the annual performance test. Stapling was incorporated to help prevent employees from unintentionally opening new accounts every time they start a new job. A stapled fund is an existing super account that is linked or stapled to an individual employee so it follows them as they change jobs. This helps to reduce fees and avoid new super accounts being opened every time someone starts a new job. Having super in just one account can also help grow a person's investment returns faster. The number of super accounts fell from around 27.4 million in 2019 to about 24.8 million in 2025. The number of Australians who have a single superannuation account increased from 74 per cent in 2020 to 78 per cent in 2024. Before stapling, it was estimated that about 850,000 duplicate accounts were created each year as workers moved between jobs. This bill will assist in this important protection for workers. Treasury estimates a full ban on onboarding advertising could save members between $17 million and $117 million a year from avoiding underperforming products plus additional savings from $3.3 million to $56 million a year from fees saved on having duplicate accounts.

To demonstrate the danger for workers from a practical perspective, I want to highlight a case study that was reported in the AFR in 2023. Accounting software giant MYOB were accused of funnelling workers into an underperforming super fund, Slate Super, through tricky advertising on their digital onboarding platform. Workers' current funds were often buried in the fine print, whereas their feature funds, who were paying for advertising, had clear prominence. Unfortunately, not everyone gets as excited about superannuation as those of us here in the chamber. Most workers probably don't delve into the detail and fine print, especially at the exciting time of starting a new job. These so-called choices without proper analysis do not give workers meaningful choice in their superannuation fund or provide comparable information, which can clearly lead to outcomes that are not in the best financial interests of the consumer.

Slate Super returned 13.44 per cent in its highest growth fund compared with an industry average of 21.8 per cent. That's more than eight per cent less. Its fees were also significantly higher than those of many other funds. A member with a $50,000 balance would pay $645 in fees annually compared with $500 on average. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that this legislation seeks to curb. Signing up to a product like this could substantially disadvantage some workers and leave them with thousands less in their retirement many years later.

Australians deserve protection from inappropriate advertising when they provide their superannuation details to an employer during the onboarding process. This is a key moment for employees, and they should be able to engage with their super in a safe and informed way, free from inappropriate pressure or product promotion. Workers should be confident, when they start a new job, that there are strong guardrails to protect their interests at the point of employee onboarding, to ensure they are not inadvertently being moved into a poorer performing super fund.

In closing, I wanted to make some comments that pick up on Senator Chandler's remarks. I note that the Senate Economics Legislation Committee did inquire into this legislation and recommended that the bill be passed. The coalition senators' dissenting report and the comments we heard just a moment ago said that the bill is Orwellian in suggesting that these restrictions improve choice. The suggestion that sensible safeguards somehow undermine choice misunderstands how the super system works in reality. Choice is meaningful only when it is exercised in an environment that is transparent, fair and free from pressure or misinformation. A choice that guides Australians unknowingly to a decision that leaves them worse off is no choice at all.

Australians can only make informed decisions about their retirement savings when the system operates with integrity. This is what this legislation is designed to do. The real risk to choice arises when people are steered into decisions without adequate information or when commercial interests dominate the process. Sensible guardrails ensure that the decision about where your super goes remains genuinely yours. Protecting the integrity of the decision-making process is not Orwellian; it is a basic responsibility when dealing with a system that manages trillions of dollars of Australians' retirement savings. Again, I would like to thank those stakeholders who submitted to the inquiry, for your submissions and insights, and, more broadly, thank the many organisations who consistently engage in the work to continue to maintain the integrity and fairness of our superannuation system.

In closing, this legislation is another step in the great Labor legacy that is superannuation, a legacy that has completely transformed the lives of retired working people over just one generation. Reforms like this will ensure that the objective of superannuation—that is, a dignified retirement—is not eroded as the system matures. I commend the bill to the chamber.