Briefly Women in Super (WIS) is an organisation with around 80 members in Auckland and Wellington that was established last year. WIS's purpose is:
In a nutshell WIS is about interested women from the industry using their skills and expertise to shift the focus of the mainstream superannuation debate/discussions and to pose the question: How does this impact on women? Is this serving the needs of women?
We don't in any way suggest that some of the issues facing women are unique to women, many will equally impact on men and are a result of their socio-economic position in society. For a family on an average income, finding the money for this week’s groceries is rightly the most important and pressing concern. But there is clear evidence from research in the United Kingdom that even those on low to medium incomes are interested and capable of saving for long-term goals.
However, having said that some of the factors which women face in general in relation to superannuation are as follows:
Why should we care? Particularly those of us who are in a position to save. This will be an issue that affects us all - our mothers, sisters, aunts, best-friends and neighbours - someone you know and love will reach retirement and for a variety of reasons will be inadequately prepared and will be reliant on a very modest state pension.
Women in Super have recently been developing our Policy Statement, and while we're making great progress, it's fair to say it’s in the embryonic phase of its development. As a starting point I can tell you that we support the World Bank/OECD three pillar framework for retirement income:
Pillar 1: Safety net basic state pension
Pillar 2 - Workplace superannuation
Pillar 3 Voluntary Provision
In relation to the first pillar we support a low universal state pension with an income tested top-up for those who qualify.
In relation to the second and third pillars we believe incentives for saving are going to be pivotal in setting the required cultural shift to the way we view savings. New Zealanders need to be encouraged to develop a savings ethic where at all possible. Some of the incentives we are considering include:
I consider facilitating this cultural shift to be the biggest challenge facing our community. This appears particularly acute now we have a student loan generation who are openly comfortable with using debt to fund their lifestyles – indeed many never expect to pay off that debt. Credit card debt is also growing. When and how did we get to be such good consumers? It doesn't bode well.
In a perfect world superannuation wouldn't be on the political agenda. It's too important to be a political football - it's bigger than all of us!
We need a credible and stable policy that sends the right message to savers. Twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings need to know what the message is. Afterall how can we expect them to embrace a message to save for themselves when the situation keeps changing on them?
When discussing superannuation policy with a colleague last week he suggested we should just ignore it. He qualified this by saying:
"Just make sure you take taxes off cigarettes and alcohol, distribute them in schools, remove speed limits and blood alcohol limits, ban the use of seatbelts "
You get the picture.
As a society we have signaled that the care and wellbeing of our members is an important feature of this wonderful country in which we live and this set of values needs to be filtered through to the way we implement superannuation policy.
This doesn't mean write a blank cheque - the consistent message needs to be that people must, where at all possible, save for their retirement, and start saving early. The earlier they start the easier it is.
Brenda Minkhorst is a committee member of Women in Super. This is a copy of a speech she gave to a Women in Super breakfast in Auckland.