Irresponsible media coverage and short-sighted regulation have contributed to a lack of engagement in super by the general public, according to HESTA chief executive Anne-Marie Corboy.
Media coverage during the global financial crisis (GFC) convinced many people that super had performed much more poorly than it had, Corboy told delegates at the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) conference in Adelaide.
Mainstream news was likely to cover someone saying that they had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars during the GFC, convincing people that their much smaller super balance would have been decimated, where in fact the average person with a super balance of around $20,000 would have lost a negligible part of that sum, Corboy said.
Corboy also fired a broadside at regulators for requiring information and documentation around super to be more complicated than it needed to be.
Funds would be able to package information in a simple and easy to understand manner and give members the most relevant information, but regulatory bodies have traditionally required information such as Product Disclosure Statements (PDSs) to be needlessly complicated, prompting disengagement from the average member.
Other members of the panel discussing member engagement highlighted the importance of social media in targeting the next generation of super fund members.
Mark McCrindle, social researcher and director of McCrindle Research, said the teenagers who would make up the next wave of Australian workers lived their whole lives through tools such as Facebook and Twitter, and super funds needed to embrace this technology in helping these people to understand the importance of superannuation.
