Media Release

Make your new year’s resolution to sort out your super: ASFA’s top five tips for sorting out your super in 2014

14 January 2014

Make your new year’s resolution to sort out your super: ASFA’s top five tips for sorting out your super in 2014

As we kick off the new year, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) is urging all Australians to spend 60 minutes this month sorting out their super.

ASFA CEO Ms Pauline Vamos says the start of a new year is an ideal time to get your super sorted, in order to ensure you are on track to deliver the best outcomes for your retirement savings.

“Two weeks into the new year, some of us are probably already slipping when it comes to our new year’s resolutions, but the one resolution that you should not let slide is to sort out your super. So whether you’re relaxing on your holiday break or getting back into work, think about setting aside one hour of your day to take some simple steps that could add thousands to your superannuation balance in retirement,” says Ms Vamos.

ASFA’s top five tips for sorting out your super

1. Consolidate your accounts

If you’ve had more than one job, chances are you also have more than one super account. Moving all your super into one account can help you avoid paying duplicate administration fees and will also make managing your super easier. It could also save you money on investment fees or insurance costs.

2. Find lost super

Tracking down lost super is another way to boost your retirement nest egg. Currently, there are billions of dollars in lost and unclaimed super, and some of it may belong to you. Use the ATO SuperSeeker tool to search for your lost and unclaimed super, then contact the fund to arrange to move it into your active super account.

3. Access the free help that is available

Many people do not know where to start when it comes to finding out about their super, but a good place to start is to get in touch with your fund. Most super funds have call centres and websites that can provide you with information, general advice and tools to help you plan for your retirement.

4. Plan to save more

Making small changes can add thousands of dollars to your balance in retirement. For example, having one less $3.80 cup of coffee per day and putting the extra money into your super could add over $120,000 to your final balance in retirement.* The earlier you start saving, the more you will benefit, so think about making these small changes today.

If you are on a low income and make personal, after-tax contributions to your super, then you may also be eligible for the government’s co-contribution, which will pay up to $500 directly into your super account. For further information visit the ATO’s website.

5. Visit Super Guru

The better you get to know your super, the more confident you will feel when it comes to dealing with it. Visit the independent ASFA Super Guru website, www.superguru.com.au, for a wealth of information, tools and tips to help you better understand how your superannuation works.

*calculation based on a 30-year-old person putting an additional $3.80 per week into their super account that has a ‘moderate’ investment option.

For further information, please contact:

Lisa Chikarovski, Media Manager, 0451 949 300.

About ASFA

ASFA is the peak policy, research and advocacy body for Australia’s superannuation industry. It is a not-for-profit, sector-neutral, and non-party political national organisation, which aims is to advance effective retirement outcomes for members of funds through research, advocacy and the development of policy and industry best practice.

Derek Thompson

Via live link

Best Selling Author, Podcast Host of 'Plain English'

Sessions

Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Few speakers can match Derek Thompson‘s ability to synthesize mega-trends in society, labor, economics, technology, and politics. Put another way: Derek trawls the data sets and does the forecasting and deep reporting necessary to help us better understand how we live, how we vote, how we spend, and how we work.

In his paradigm-shifting #1 New York Times bestseller, Abundance (co-written with Ezra Klein), this award-winning journalist reveals how our policies and culture have pushed us into a world of scarcity (not enough housing, workers, or progress)—and offers a radical new path towards a world where housing is affordable, energy is plentiful, and innovation flourishes across industries.

He shares a compelling vision of a future where we have more than enough for everybody, and a practical, actionable roadmap for how to get there. It starts with taking more risks, building more expansively, and recognizing that we all have the power to create a world of abundance. “Everything’s utopian until it’s reality,” he says.

Carmen Beverley-Smith

Executive Director - Superannuation, Life & Private Health Insurance, APRA

Sessions

Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Carmen joined APRA in March 2023 and holds the role of Executive Director, Life and Private Health Insurance and Superannuation.  

She has had an esteemed career in financial services, spanning over 25 years. She has held diverse leadership roles at Westpac and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, including across risk, transformation and change, product and portfolio development, and sales and service. 

Prior to joining APRA, she held the role of General Manager, Risk Transformation Delivery Integration at Westpac. This involved leading the group-wide implementation of a suite of solutions to uplift risk management capability and develop data, analytics and reporting. 

Carmen leads with a values-driven approach and a particular interest in developing and mentoring talent. 

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Accounting, is a certified Chartered Accountant and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. 

Amy C. Edmondson

Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School

Sessions

Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.

Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011, and most recently was ranked #1 in 2021 and 2023; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019, and Talent Award in 2017.  She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organisational learning, and her articles have been published in numerous academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. Her 2019 book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth (Wiley), has been translated into 15 languages. Her prior books – Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy (Jossey-Bass, 2012), Teaming to Innovate (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Extreme Teaming (Emerald, 2017) – explore teamwork in dynamic organisational environments. In Building the future: Big teaming for audacious innovation (Berrett-Koehler, 2016), she examines the challenges and opportunities of teaming across industries to build smart cities. 

Edmondson’s latest book, Right Kind of Wrong (Atria), builds on her prior work on psychological safety and teaming to provide a framework for thinking about, discussing, and practicing the science of failing well. First published in the US and the UK in September, 2023, the book is due to be translated into 24 additional languages, and was selected for the Financial Times and Schroders Best Business Book of the Year award.

Before her academic career, she was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked on transformational change in large companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, and her book A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller (Birkauser Boston, 1987) clarifies Fuller’s mathematical contributions for a non-technical audience. Edmondson received her PhD in organisational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design from Harvard University.

 

Daniel Mulino MP

Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services

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Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Born in Brindisi, Italy, Daniel was a young child when he moved with his family to Australia. He grew up in Canberra and completed his first degrees – arts and law – at the ANU. He then completed a Master of Economics (University of Sydney) and a PhD in economics from Yale.

He lectured at Monash University, was an economic adviser in the Gillard government and was a Victorian MP from 2014 to 2018. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer of Victoria, Daniel helped deliver major infrastructure projects and developed innovative financing structures for community projects.

In 2018 he was preselected for the new federal seat of Fraser and became its first MP at the 2019 election, re-elected in 2022 and 2025. From 2022 to 2025, Daniel was chair of the House of Representatives’ Standing Economics Committee in which he chaired inquiries; economic dynamism, competition and business formation and insurers’ responses to 2022 major floods claims.

In 2025, he became the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services.

In August 2022, Daniel published ‘Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia’, which aims to explore the ways in which an insurance approach can improve the effectiveness of government service delivery.