September 7, 2025 • 13 mins
Australian men and women are retiring, on average, with substantially different superannuation balances. Now, there’s a push in Canberra to tackle what’s known as the "gender super gap". Last week, Liberal Senator Jane Hume introduced a bill that would allow couples to split their super without facing additional taxes, with the goal of improving financial outcomes for women and gender equity among ageing Australians.
In today’s deep dive, we’ll give you a snapshot of where Australia’s super gap is and explain everything you need to know about this proposed legislation.
Hosts: Emma Gillespie and Sam Koslowski
Producer: Orla Maher
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Daily os.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ours. It's Monday,
the eighth of September.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Emma Gillespie, I'm Sam Kluski.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Australian men and women are retiring on average with substantially
different superannuation balances. Now there's a push in Canberra to
tackle what's known as the gender super gap.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Last week, Liberal Senator Jane Hume introduced a bill.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
That would allow couples to split their super without facing
additional taxes, with the goal of improving financial outcomes for
women and gender.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Equity among aging Australians.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
In today's deep Dive, we'll give you a snapshot of
where Australia's supergap is at and explain everything you need
to know about this proposed legislation. We'll get into that
right after a quick message from today's sponsor.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
What an interesting topic to discuss. I feel like superannuation.
It's one of those things that we know is coming many,
many decades away for most of us and for most
of us listening. But the decisions that are made on
how it works now will really make an impact in
our later years. So why don't we start right at
the basics, give me the elevator pitch for superannuation in Australia.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yes, So super is money set aside for retirement from
your pay. Basically, your employer has to make mandatory contributions
out of your salary. But in most cases this is
not money that you can just access willy nilly. Most
of us won't be able to get.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
This money until we turn sixty.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Every employer in Australia, like I said, is legally required.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
To make super contributions for their staff.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Case in point, you Sam, as a co founder, you
would be all over this. The whole system basically is
designed so that when Ossie's retire we can support ourselves
without putting too much strain on welfare payments and the
welfare system so things like the aged pension. But the
gender gap when it comes to super is significant. So
in the years approaching retirement age, the gender supergap can
(02:11):
be anywhere between twenty two and thirty five percent. But
on average, women in Australia right now are retiring with
about twenty five percent less super annuation than men, and
that translates to an estimated fifty two thousand dollars less
on average for women entering retirement. So the median superbalance
for men aged sixty to sixty four is over two
(02:34):
hundred and four thousand dollars, whereas for women in that
same group it's about one hundred and forty seven thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
That's a pretty significant gap. It's definitely one that surprised
me when you've rolled out those numbers. Why exactly is
that gap there?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Look, there are many reasons and they're all quite interconnected,
but the biggest factor for Australia's supergap really comes down
to the fact that women are more likely to take
time out of the workforce to be the primary care
for young children. So that can include long stretches that
are career breaks, that can include maternity leave, and basically
(03:13):
there's this compounding effect created by that where not only
women are missing out on super contributions during their time
away from work, but they're also missing out on the
investment returns on those contributions over several decades. So there
are kind of many revenue streams that are impacted by this.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And the point there is that a dollar now into
your superannuation account that gets invested by superfund, and that
dollar probably could be four or five dollars when you retire.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Exactly, got it.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Women are also more likely to work part time than men,
so that impacts their earning power, which impacts their super
earning power. And they're also more likely to take more
time out of paid work than men to care for
elderly relatives. So there is this kind of gender care
gap as well. But you know, when we're talking super
pay gaps, it has to come from as well, a
(04:05):
broader gender pay gap to consider. So, on average, women
earn nearly twenty three percent less than men and are
generally underrepresented in management. So women have this pay gap.
They also have more limits on their opportunities to make
biggert salaries. And I guess what you need to know
is that in Australia, for every dollar on average that
a man makes, women earn seventy eight cents. And since
(04:28):
SUPER is calculated as a percentage of your salary, lower
wages mean proportionally smaller SUPER contributions over a working lifetime.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And so we talk a lot about closing that gender
pay gap and the various initiatives that are attempting over
the last kind of I'd say thirty forty years trying
to close that gap. Ye, but what then are the
longer term impacts of the gender super gap.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, So, apart from the obvious kind of gender equity
argument here, you know what is right and fair, how
do we improve outcomes for all Australians, including women, to
make things better and fairer. There's also an important financial
and welfare strain that comes from a super gap. So
individuals with low superbalancers are more likely to need the
(05:13):
age pension in retirement. So if you don't have a
healthy super you're going to need welfare assistance that is
at a cost to the government and the taxpayer. And
I guess it's not really a surprise then to know
that women make up around fifty five to fifty six
percent of aged pension recipients, so we have an aged
pension gender gap. Plus women live longer than men, that
(05:34):
is a fact. On average, women do live longer, so
you could argue that means, you know, women need even
more cash when they retire, if not equal to men,
but more superman men to ensure that they can actually
support themselves for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And so we're talking about this on the pod today
because liberal sentencor Jane Hume has put forward a solution.
She's come up with an idea to try and narrow
this gender super gap talk me through it.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
So, Jane Hume has put forward this bill that would
allow couples to split their superannuation savings with no additional
tax penalties.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Now, under this.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Proposal, the partner with the most super could transfer up
to two million dollars from their fund to their partners
right now. Currently there are pretty significant tax implications for
most super transfers, so this would get rid of that
make it easier, cheaper, faster to transfer between funds. Jane
Hume calls it a simple and voluntary mechanism for fairness
(06:32):
to tackle one of the most persistent and unfair challenges
in our super annuation system.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
This would probably.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Be most helpful or particularly helpful for a traditional family
set up where we've got a partner who's worked full
time for their whole careers while another partner has been
a primary career for their children or for elderly relatives
and have missed out on super there So, under this plan,
both partners in this instance would enter retirement with more
(07:00):
balanced savings improving financial security for the lower earning partner.
But it's not a perfect plan. Critics have noted that
this proposal doesn't include any plans to overhaul workplace inequalities
or equalize caring responsibilities. Interesting, and the legislation really is
specifically designed for married or de facto couples, So you
(07:21):
could argue when those couples retire, they're going to be
sharing in the same super anyway, And it leaves out
single women.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
We know single women retire.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
With less super than men, and this legislation doesn't really
do anything for that group.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I noticed when you were introducing this to us you
are very careful to say Jane Hume's policy, not the
coalition's policy. Is there a reason for that choice of language.
And is Hume now pushing this independently?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yes, so this is actually a private bill.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
This is a proposal from Jane Hume, a Liberal senator,
but that doesn't mean it is an official policy position
being put forward by the coalition. So she is pressing
ahead with this agenda independently, as you suggested, Sam, But
she has said that she's raised the policy in the
Nationals party room and that she does have some support
from MPs and senators. They've not been named, though. Hume
(08:15):
has conceded that she's not really expecting this issue to
be high on the agenda at the upcoming federal election,
but she would advocate for the policy if the coalition
wins government. So to be very clear, that doesn't mean
the coalition would automatically adopt this policy. It's just something
that Hume would push for.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
And she's planted that seed pretty early because the next
federal election is still kind of what two and a
half years away exactly, giving her a long runway into
turning this into a discussion for the country. Does it
have any opposition as an idea? Are there other ideas
on the table when it comes to leveling out this
super gap? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The Albanezy government has taken a different approach to try
to resolve this gap, and one of the big policy
areas is relating to changes to paid parental leave. So
this year we saw superannuation added to paid parental leave.
So for the first time, if you receive paid parental
leave entitlements, twelve percent super will be paid on top
(09:15):
of that. So that came in from one July this year.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And if you think about the core reasons that you
gave earlier in terms of why that gap exists and
the time off work and some of those reasons. That's
kind of countering that head on.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, and Labour says essentially that this is going to
boost the superbalances of around one hundred and eighty families
each year. Paid parental leave does go up to twenty
six weeks next year and from that point these super
contributions will be worth more than three thousand dollars per person.
The government has also legislated the publication of gender pay
gaps for large companies, so the Workplace Gender Equality Agency
(09:53):
now reports very transparently on pay gaps. There are mandatory
reporting standards for all employers that give us us a
better sense of where the pay gap is at and
you know, put more pressure on employers to address disparities.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So it's kind of a bit of a multi pronged
attack from both the government and the opposition. It's clear
that both sides of the aisle are thinking about this
as a core issue. That's the political response. I'd like
to quickly turn to the industry response. The superannuation industry
itself is very powerful and has a lot of say
in how these types of programs roll out. Have we
(10:27):
heard from industry groups.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, so there are a couple of other ideas being
put forward. As you mentioned, this is a multi kind
of pronged approach. But the Association of Superannuation Funds of
Australia was in support of compulsory on paid parental leave.
They advocated for that before those reforms came in a
couple of months ago. And separately, the Association of super
(10:51):
Funds has proposed a super baby bonus. So this would
involve the government depositing five thousand dollars into the super
accounts of women and they give birth to a child.
So that's a really interesting conversation that's going on now.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
From the business.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
World, we have KPMG who has proposed catch up super
concessions for carers.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So these would allow people.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Who've taken time out of the workforce for caring responsibilities,
as we've discussed, to make higher contributions later when they
returned to work. So a couple of interesting conversations I
suppose ongoing.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And so give me a sense of what happens from here.
We have one member of the Opposition coming forward with
this private bill that's Jane Hume, is it likely to
become a thing?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Look, it is unlikely, as with many private bills, for
this to become law, it would need the support of
the government, and that seems unlikely at this stage given
how recently they introduced SUPER on paid parental leave, and
also given how recently SUPER contributions increased. So Labour has
its own approach clearly on this and they might see
(11:56):
that as sufficient for now. So I don't think Jane
Hume is going to get this one over the line immediately,
but there's certainly an ongoing discussion around what we can
do to improve outcomes for women when they retire.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I think these topics are good when they don't necessarily
correlate directly to a law that's here and now, but
keeps conversations moving, keeps us thinking of options that are
out there on the table, and I think it's probably
a case of politics working well, which is quite rare.
Fancy that and that's all we've got for you on
today's episode of The Daily Os. We're going to be
(12:30):
back in the afternoon with your headlines. Until then, have
a great start to the week. My name is Lily
Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalguttin woman from
Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is
recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays
respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait island and nations.
(12:53):
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present, and m
Already and this is the Daily os.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ours. It's Monday,
the eighth of September.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Emma Gillespie, I'm Sam Kluski.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Australian men and women are retiring on average with substantially
different superannuation balances. Now there's a push in Canberra to
tackle what's known as the gender super gap.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Last week, Liberal Senator Jane Hume introduced a bill.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
That would allow couples to split their super without facing
additional taxes, with the goal of improving financial outcomes for
women and gender.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Equity among aging Australians.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
In today's deep Dive, we'll give you a snapshot of
where Australia's supergap is at and explain everything you need
to know about this proposed legislation. We'll get into that
right after a quick message from today's sponsor.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
What an interesting topic to discuss. I feel like superannuation.
It's one of those things that we know is coming many,
many decades away for most of us and for most
of us listening. But the decisions that are made on
how it works now will really make an impact in
our later years. So why don't we start right at
the basics, give me the elevator pitch for superannuation in Australia.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yes, So super is money set aside for retirement from
your pay. Basically, your employer has to make mandatory contributions
out of your salary. But in most cases this is
not money that you can just access willy nilly. Most
of us won't be able to get.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
This money until we turn sixty.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Every employer in Australia, like I said, is legally required.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
To make super contributions for their staff.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Case in point, you Sam, as a co founder, you
would be all over this. The whole system basically is
designed so that when Ossie's retire we can support ourselves
without putting too much strain on welfare payments and the
welfare system so things like the aged pension. But the
gender gap when it comes to super is significant. So
in the years approaching retirement age, the gender supergap can
(02:11):
be anywhere between twenty two and thirty five percent. But
on average, women in Australia right now are retiring with
about twenty five percent less super annuation than men, and
that translates to an estimated fifty two thousand dollars less
on average for women entering retirement. So the median superbalance
for men aged sixty to sixty four is over two
(02:34):
hundred and four thousand dollars, whereas for women in that
same group it's about one hundred and forty seven thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
That's a pretty significant gap. It's definitely one that surprised
me when you've rolled out those numbers. Why exactly is
that gap there?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Look, there are many reasons and they're all quite interconnected,
but the biggest factor for Australia's supergap really comes down
to the fact that women are more likely to take
time out of the workforce to be the primary care
for young children. So that can include long stretches that
are career breaks, that can include maternity leave, and basically
(03:13):
there's this compounding effect created by that where not only
women are missing out on super contributions during their time
away from work, but they're also missing out on the
investment returns on those contributions over several decades. So there
are kind of many revenue streams that are impacted by this.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And the point there is that a dollar now into
your superannuation account that gets invested by superfund, and that
dollar probably could be four or five dollars when you retire.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Exactly, got it.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Women are also more likely to work part time than men,
so that impacts their earning power, which impacts their super
earning power. And they're also more likely to take more
time out of paid work than men to care for
elderly relatives. So there is this kind of gender care
gap as well. But you know, when we're talking super
pay gaps, it has to come from as well, a
(04:05):
broader gender pay gap to consider. So, on average, women
earn nearly twenty three percent less than men and are
generally underrepresented in management. So women have this pay gap.
They also have more limits on their opportunities to make
biggert salaries. And I guess what you need to know
is that in Australia, for every dollar on average that
a man makes, women earn seventy eight cents. And since
(04:28):
SUPER is calculated as a percentage of your salary, lower
wages mean proportionally smaller SUPER contributions over a working lifetime.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And so we talk a lot about closing that gender
pay gap and the various initiatives that are attempting over
the last kind of I'd say thirty forty years trying
to close that gap. Ye, but what then are the
longer term impacts of the gender super gap.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, So, apart from the obvious kind of gender equity
argument here, you know what is right and fair, how
do we improve outcomes for all Australians, including women, to
make things better and fairer. There's also an important financial
and welfare strain that comes from a super gap. So
individuals with low superbalancers are more likely to need the
(05:13):
age pension in retirement. So if you don't have a
healthy super you're going to need welfare assistance that is
at a cost to the government and the taxpayer. And
I guess it's not really a surprise then to know
that women make up around fifty five to fifty six
percent of aged pension recipients, so we have an aged
pension gender gap. Plus women live longer than men, that
(05:34):
is a fact. On average, women do live longer, so
you could argue that means, you know, women need even
more cash when they retire, if not equal to men,
but more superman men to ensure that they can actually
support themselves for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And so we're talking about this on the pod today
because liberal sentencor Jane Hume has put forward a solution.
She's come up with an idea to try and narrow
this gender super gap talk me through it.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
So, Jane Hume has put forward this bill that would
allow couples to split their superannuation savings with no additional
tax penalties.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Now, under this.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Proposal, the partner with the most super could transfer up
to two million dollars from their fund to their partners
right now. Currently there are pretty significant tax implications for
most super transfers, so this would get rid of that
make it easier, cheaper, faster to transfer between funds. Jane
Hume calls it a simple and voluntary mechanism for fairness
(06:32):
to tackle one of the most persistent and unfair challenges
in our super annuation system.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
This would probably.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Be most helpful or particularly helpful for a traditional family
set up where we've got a partner who's worked full
time for their whole careers while another partner has been
a primary career for their children or for elderly relatives
and have missed out on super there So, under this plan,
both partners in this instance would enter retirement with more
(07:00):
balanced savings improving financial security for the lower earning partner.
But it's not a perfect plan. Critics have noted that
this proposal doesn't include any plans to overhaul workplace inequalities
or equalize caring responsibilities. Interesting, and the legislation really is
specifically designed for married or de facto couples, So you
(07:21):
could argue when those couples retire, they're going to be
sharing in the same super anyway, And it leaves out
single women.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
We know single women retire.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
With less super than men, and this legislation doesn't really
do anything for that group.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I noticed when you were introducing this to us you
are very careful to say Jane Hume's policy, not the
coalition's policy. Is there a reason for that choice of language.
And is Hume now pushing this independently?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yes, so this is actually a private bill.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
This is a proposal from Jane Hume, a Liberal senator,
but that doesn't mean it is an official policy position
being put forward by the coalition. So she is pressing
ahead with this agenda independently, as you suggested, Sam, But
she has said that she's raised the policy in the
Nationals party room and that she does have some support
from MPs and senators. They've not been named, though. Hume
(08:15):
has conceded that she's not really expecting this issue to
be high on the agenda at the upcoming federal election,
but she would advocate for the policy if the coalition
wins government. So to be very clear, that doesn't mean
the coalition would automatically adopt this policy. It's just something
that Hume would push for.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
And she's planted that seed pretty early because the next
federal election is still kind of what two and a
half years away exactly, giving her a long runway into
turning this into a discussion for the country. Does it
have any opposition as an idea? Are there other ideas
on the table when it comes to leveling out this
super gap? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The Albanezy government has taken a different approach to try
to resolve this gap, and one of the big policy
areas is relating to changes to paid parental leave. So
this year we saw superannuation added to paid parental leave.
So for the first time, if you receive paid parental
leave entitlements, twelve percent super will be paid on top
(09:15):
of that. So that came in from one July this year.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And if you think about the core reasons that you
gave earlier in terms of why that gap exists and
the time off work and some of those reasons. That's
kind of countering that head on.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, and Labour says essentially that this is going to
boost the superbalances of around one hundred and eighty families
each year. Paid parental leave does go up to twenty
six weeks next year and from that point these super
contributions will be worth more than three thousand dollars per person.
The government has also legislated the publication of gender pay
gaps for large companies, so the Workplace Gender Equality Agency
(09:53):
now reports very transparently on pay gaps. There are mandatory
reporting standards for all employers that give us us a
better sense of where the pay gap is at and
you know, put more pressure on employers to address disparities.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So it's kind of a bit of a multi pronged
attack from both the government and the opposition. It's clear
that both sides of the aisle are thinking about this
as a core issue. That's the political response. I'd like
to quickly turn to the industry response. The superannuation industry
itself is very powerful and has a lot of say
in how these types of programs roll out. Have we
(10:27):
heard from industry groups.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, so there are a couple of other ideas being
put forward. As you mentioned, this is a multi kind
of pronged approach. But the Association of Superannuation Funds of
Australia was in support of compulsory on paid parental leave.
They advocated for that before those reforms came in a
couple of months ago. And separately, the Association of super
(10:51):
Funds has proposed a super baby bonus. So this would
involve the government depositing five thousand dollars into the super
accounts of women and they give birth to a child.
So that's a really interesting conversation that's going on now.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
From the business.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
World, we have KPMG who has proposed catch up super
concessions for carers.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So these would allow people.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Who've taken time out of the workforce for caring responsibilities,
as we've discussed, to make higher contributions later when they
returned to work. So a couple of interesting conversations I
suppose ongoing.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And so give me a sense of what happens from here.
We have one member of the Opposition coming forward with
this private bill that's Jane Hume, is it likely to
become a thing?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Look, it is unlikely, as with many private bills, for
this to become law, it would need the support of
the government, and that seems unlikely at this stage given
how recently they introduced SUPER on paid parental leave, and
also given how recently SUPER contributions increased. So Labour has
its own approach clearly on this and they might see
(11:56):
that as sufficient for now. So I don't think Jane
Hume is going to get this one over the line immediately,
but there's certainly an ongoing discussion around what we can
do to improve outcomes for women when they retire.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I think these topics are good when they don't necessarily
correlate directly to a law that's here and now, but
keeps conversations moving, keeps us thinking of options that are
out there on the table, and I think it's probably
a case of politics working well, which is quite rare.
Fancy that and that's all we've got for you on
today's episode of The Daily Os. We're going to be
(12:30):
back in the afternoon with your headlines. Until then, have
a great start to the week. My name is Lily
Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalguttin woman from
Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is
recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays
respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait island and nations.
(12:53):
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present, and m
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