November super news

3 min read
3 min read

Cost of living pressures impacting young Australians’ mental health

Rest has released research which raises concerns that cost-of-living pressures and financial stress may cause many young Australians to disengage entirely from their financial future.
A survey commissioned by Rest about experiences and attitudes towards superannuation, has revealed nearly three quarters (73 per cent) of the fund’s young members who are experiencing financial stress say that it is negatively impacting their mental health.
The research also found:
• 70 per cent of young Rest members are worried about keeping up with cost of living pressures
• 55 per cent of young Rest members say they are struggling to achieve the financial outcomes they want now
• 51 per cent are already worried about having enough super to retire, despite being three or four decades away from retirement
• 50 per cent of young Rest members say they often feel stressed about meeting their day-to-day financial needs.

Rest CEO Vicki Doyle said: “The experience and needs of young people should not be forgotten when it comes to considering the future of superannuation in Australia.

“Super funds must be part of the solution here. Our research shows that, when they do engage with their superannuation, members can feel more confident about their future. Earlier and more regular engagement can lead to better retirement outcomes.”

Natixis Investment Managers expands its presence in Australia with retail licence

Natixis Investment Managers (Natixis IM) has announced it has expanded its Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) allowing it to promote to retail clients. With the expanded licence the leading global asset manager has the opportunity to bring the capabilities of its Expert Collective of more than 15 investment managers to Australian financial advisers and retail investors.

Natixis IM is ranked as the world’s 17th largest asset manager with more than US$1.2 trillion assets under management globally.

Country Head Australia and New Zealand for Natixis IM, Louise Watson, said the retail AFSL is an important milestone for Natixis IM in Australia.

AMP research shows retirement challenges for older Australians

Research by AMP shows that most older Australians find it challenging to navigate the retirement system and lack knowledge about fundamental aspects of managing their retirement finances.

For Australians aged 50 and over the research found:

▪ 3 in 4 find the retirement system complex

▪ 2 in 5 don’t know if they’ll be eligible for aged-pension benefits

▪ 7 in 10 don’t know what an account-based pension is

▪ 3 in 4 have not sought financial advice for retirement planning

▪ 3 in 5 wish they’d started planning for retirement earlier in life

▪ 3 in 5 are ‘extremely concerned’ about the rising cost of living

With more Australians living longer and spending more of their later years in full health, a large cohort are heading into retirement lacking the knowledge and confidence to navigate this important transition.

To help address the financial literacy gap in retirement, AMP and its North investment platform launched its Retire with Confidence Whitepaper, which takes a closer look at the growing maturity of Australia’s superannuation system and the challenges faced by Australians heading into retirement.

AMP Chief Executive, Alexis George, said: “This research shows the challenges faced by the growing number of Australians heading into retirement, a process they find complex and made harder by a lack of financial literacy.”

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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

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.