An interesting piece of mail arrived at my house this week. It was the government letter telling me that now that I was 45, I should participate in their ‘life checks’ program. My emotions ranged from joy that the government had a program for my age (remember, I wrote the book breakfast club for fortysomethings, so am pretty passionate about preparing people for what next) and curiosity as to what they were going to tell me, particularly around money.
While we as an industry have had what I would call a governmental slap with the Royal Commission, I was hoping that the kiss would come direct to the people, telling them how to get advice, how to think about retirement and what to prepare for.
Well, lets just say the kiss was disappointing. It turns out life checks was a 10-minute quiz where you used a slider to say how you were feeling about your health, wealth, and social life. While I understand its hard to engage the average Australian, I could not help but wonder was this more a litmus test from government to see where us middle aged people are at.
After the slider links, there were some link attachments to the usual suspects – money smart etc. Hardly going to engage the average Australian to think hard about money. While I am pleased to see at least some thought put into preparing Australia, its going to take a lot more than a 10-minute slider quiz to get people to start taking responsibility and looking to the future. And while the task certainly does not rest with the government alone, they could do with some fresh ideas and way to engage people on a national level.
I remember the Norm campaigns of my youth – and the ‘life – be in it’ slogan that got fat Norm off the couch and exercising and playing with his kids. While it was not exactly an intellectual message, it has stuck with me, as I know it will have for many of you. I have no doubt that a campaign of this nature, could be equally as engaging for people’s finances and their thinking around retirement and the future, rather than a rather surface quiz.
While there is a lot to do in our industry, and less resources to do so in many areas, we still have the task of helping people to their retirement. Through our conversations with super CEOs in our new series of After Hours you can see that most super funds are working on the challenge of being the super fund for life, to be partnering with members in retirement. I know advisers are always working toward preparing their clients for that challenge, and there seems to be an opportunity for advisers to collaborate more with super funds.
But the reality is, unless there is more effective government intervention in encouraging people to take advice, and valuable resources that is possibly put into content like the ABC aimed at teaching people in engaging ways, we Middle Ages are going to march into retirement underfunded and under prepared.
As always, a government has multiple priorities – from defense, immigration and of course the usual wrangling just to stay in power. But a landscape with a majority of over 70s people that do not have enough to live on, with a pension system too in demand to be able to cater for everyone is a governmental nightmare. Let’s hope someone there has enough vision to collaborate more with us and make something happen that can actually make a difference.
In the meantime, we will keep moving forward and telling stories to bring closer to you, our advice, super and investing community. For only here do the skills lie to make a national difference.
Until next time,
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