Media Release

The new financial year is a good time to sort your super: ASFA

Published 30 June, 2014

Published 30 June, 2014

30 June 2014

The new financial year is a good time to sort your super: ASFA

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) is urging the community to sort out their superannuation, and start the new financial year with a super health check.

ASFA CEO Ms Pauline Vamos says there are a number of changes to super that come into effect tomorrow (1 July 2014), which will help boost the retirement savings of millions of Australians.

“As of tomorrow, all working Australians will get a boost to their super with the Superannuation Guarantee increasing from 9.25 to 9.5 per cent. For a 30-year-old person on an average salary of $60,000, this means an extra $150 a year will go into their super, potentially adding around $6,000 to their final retirement savings.”

The concessional contribution caps applied to super for those under 50 will also increase as of 1 July 2014, as a result of indexation resuming for the 2014/15 financial year. This means the concessional contribution cap will rise to $30,000 for people under 50 years of age, with a higher rate of $35,000 applying for those over 50.

Indexation of non-concessional caps has also been restored, increasing the threshold to $180,000 for 2014/15, and boosting the three-year bring-forward option to $540,000.

Ms Vamos says the earlier you start thinking about the lifestyle you want in retirement and planning how you will save enough to achieve it, the better.

“The earlier you start saving, the more your superannuation will benefit from the effect of compound interest. Every dollar you put in super before you turn 35 could be worth around seven dollars in retirement. Even if you can only afford to save just a few extra dollars a week, this can make a big difference to your final balance in retirement.

“The new financial year is also a good time to sort out your super, and take some simple steps that could add thousands of dollars to your retirement savings. At the start of this new financial year, we encourage everyone to spend one hour taking simple steps to get their super sorted.”

Simple steps to get your super sorted

Check your super savings
Get to know your super better by checking your balance regularly, as well as the insurance and investment options you have, to make sure they are the best fit for your circumstances.
Simplify your super by rolling all your super accounts into one
The more accounts you have, the more you are paying in fees, and the more likely it is that you are paying for insurance or other services that you don’t need or can’t use. Consolidating your accounts and/or tracking down your lost or unclaimed super could save you thousands of dollars and over time this can make a massive difference to your retirement savings.
Plan to save more
Even small additional contributions to your super can, over time, help boost your retirement savings by thousands of dollars. As you plan your budget for the year, think about whether you can go without that one or two extra coffees a week, and put this money towards saving for the lifestyle you want in retirement.

For hints and tips on sorting your super, visit www.superguru.com.au

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 to advance effective retirement outcomes for members of funds through research, advocacy and the development of policy and industry best practice.

Acknowledgement of Country

We want to respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of these lands, seas, and waters throughout Australia. We pay our respects to Elders both past and present. We acknowledge the history, the resilience and the continual contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of their Country.

ABN 29 002 786 290

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

Sessions

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.