The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) has released consumer research that found Australians did not consider changes to superannuation to be a top priority compared to other national issues.

“When a full list of national issues were prompted to respondents, [only] 2 per cent of Australians said that they would rank further regulation of the industry as a top priority,” the ASFA research stated.

When respondents were asked to give their priorities for the Australian government right now, only 4 per cent of respondents said they had concerns about their pensions and superannuation.

“During focus groups, participants said they did not feel changes to superannuation rules was a top priority, and that any concern was dwarfed by bigger concerns like climate change, the economic recovery, housing and the cost of living,” the research report said.

When provided with a full list of national issues, the top-ranking issue was improving access to healthcare and reducing wait times, followed by reducing the cost of everyday living.

The research also indicated that a majority of respondents did not support early access to super.

Almost two-thirds of respondents, or 63 per cent, agreed that saving was hard, and therefore strict rules were needed to ensure that people have enough money to retire on.

Just over half of Australians, or 58 per cent, stated that giving people access to their super undermines the fairness of the system.

Miranda Brownlee

30 March 2022

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