\u201cAs we all know, superannuation in this system is designed as a percentage of your income, which means your retirement outcomes are entirely linked to the paid work that you do across your life,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo for anyone who steps back, whether that\u2019s to parent or to look after a family member, in that process foregoes income. There\u2019s no mechanism within our current system that\u2019s able to recognise that contribution of that work.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s not that carers have been excluded because of some oversight; it\u2019s actually a structural gap within the design of the system itself. And until we close that gap, no amount of tinkering around that is going to mean that women are going to retire into security and safety. So the idea of some kind of carers credit has been talked about in theory or in concept for a number of years. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s actually taken the sector the better part of three decades to actually name this as a critical issue. So no one is under any illusion that we\u2019re going to fix it quickly. But I\u2019m really pleased to say at Women in Super we\u2019re not just sitting around admiring the problem; we\u2019re doing the hard work to try and solve it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Carer credits\u2019 being looked at<\/p>\n
She said Women in Super, a non-profit advocacy and networking organisation that works to improve retirement outcomes for women and eliminate gender-based inequality in the super system, has been working with four of its member funds and some \u201cvery clever\u201d academics at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to develop a model of \u201ccarer credits\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd really what we\u2019re looking at is how do we translate the economic value of unpaid care into a retirement savings contribution,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that\u2019s very exciting to watch this space.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to news.com.au after the panel discussion, which the Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher took part in, she said she couldn\u2019t go into detail about how the \u201ccarer credit\u201d system would work as the details were still being ironed out.<\/p>\n
However, she said the industry bodies and academics looking at the changes said there had been successful examples of similar systems working overseas.<\/p>\n
In Germany, for example, the statutory pension scheme explicitly credits parents for child-rearing. In the UK, the government provides National Insurance credits for individuals who take time out of paid work to care for others. Sweden and France have similar systems.<\/p>\n
However, those overseas examples function within public, state-run pension schemes funded by social security taxes.<\/p>\n
Because Australia relies on a privatised superannuation system, Women in Super and its partner academics face the unique task of converting unpaid care into direct cash contributions or capital injections into private investment accounts without placing an unfair burden on employers or individual funds.<\/p>\n
Ms Kowalczyk said the measure would go some way to tackling the superannuation gap between Aussie men and women.<\/p>\n
Australian women face a substantial retirement deficit, reaching ages 60\u201364 with a median superannuation balance of roughly $163,000 compared to $220,000 for men \u2014 a gap of nearly $57,000 by median measures and over $80,000 on average.<\/p>\n
This shortfall is driven by lower lifetime earnings from the gender pay gap, higher participation in part-time work, and extended career breaks taken for unpaid caregiving responsibilities.<\/p>\n
Ms Kowalczyk said the issue of Aussies losing out on super due to unpaid care was an issue that mainly affected women but that the effect is also being felt on Australia as a whole.<\/p>\n
She said issues around pay equity and superannuation were costing the Australian economy a staggering $1.26 billion a week through lost productivity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an importance we see in needing to reframe the way that employers look at employees\u2019 caring responsibilities and shifting that from an inconvenience that needs to be worked around into a recognition that care is actually what makes paid economy work,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s that unpaid care that is the foundation that allows people to participate in the workforce. So when that shift happens and we get the policy in place around that, then we can see that really shifting the dial for the carers in this country who we know predominantly are women.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tax office, accountants being \u2018used as a weapon\u2019<\/p>\n
Beyond gaps in retirement savings, the panel heard disturbing evidence on how Australia\u2019s tax system is actively being weaponised against women.<\/p>\n
Professor Ann Kayis-Kumar, Founding Director of the UNSW Tax and Business Advisory Clinic, said assumptions of \u201cgood faith\u201d are being exploited by abusive partners to saddle victim-survivors with tax debts.<\/p>\n
The clinic she set up in 2019 works to help victims, survivors of intimate partner financial abuse, and she said they had noticed a disturbing trend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority of the female clients that we help at the clinic who come to us with a tax problem are experiencing intimate partner financial abuse,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so they\u2019ll have, for example, $20,000 in tax debts put in their name by an abuse-informed partner because they\u2019ve misused a family business.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment, legal systems assume that if the victim\u2019s name is on the business or a document, then there\u2019s good faith in assuming that she was involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said perpetrators exploit structural vulnerabilities, meaning accountants and lawyers are often unwitting \u201cauxiliaries\u201d in financial abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWork that my team and I have done has identified that if you have two criteria, then that means that the opportunity for perpetrators is rife,\u201d she said. \u201cOne is the ability to have joint access to assets, and the other element is the ability to have joint creation of liabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that while banking reforms have progressed, led by researchers like Jan Breckenridge, the tax framework remains heavily exposed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to tax, what was surprising was that as long as you have a family business where there is opportunity for joint use of a liability, and in turn the creation of debts through that mechanism, then unfortunately we found that was one of the most common ways that perpetrators can create tax debts, saddle the victim-survivor with them, and then these systems that assume good faith… have the tax office chase the victim-survivor,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo perpetrators are able to mobilise and weaponise professions and government agencies to deploy them effectively as a further tactic of their abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Training accountants and reforming the ATO<\/p>\n
To counter this, the UNSW Clinic co-designed the ATO\u2019s Vulnerability Framework released last October to train frontline tax officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s terrific to see that they have already started operationalising it before our paper recommending it has been published,\u201d Prof Kayis-Kumar said, stressing that financial abuse is widespread. <\/p>\n
\u201cFrom ABS data… 16 per cent of Australian women are experiencing intimate partner financial abuse. That is an unacceptably high number. So one in eight women who have a touchpoint with your business will be experiencing intimate partner financial abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because accounting is one of the top three professions mobilised by perpetrators, the clinic has already trained over 7000 tax and accounting professionals to spot red flags, such as controlling access to money or a lack of transparency in joint accounts.<\/p>\n
\u201cRaising awareness is a really key step. Frontline support, being front and forward, is a really key step,\u201d Prof Kayis-Kumar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd these are manageable bite sizes to get us to collectively as a whole respond to this really insidious problem.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A powerful figure in Australia\u2019s $4.4 trillion superannuation sector says major players in the industry are working 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