The SMSF sector should have greater control over how people perceive the place and role of self-managed funds in the superannuation system, with the industry’s representative body announcing plans to do more to actively promote it.
Heffron managing director Meg Heffron said the SMSF sector had a wealth of knowledge and content to share, which could be used to counter incorrect and negative messages.
“What I would do if the concern is that it’s too easy to get bad information, is we should amplify the right stuff,” Heffron said during a panel session at the SMSF Association National Conference 2025 in Melbourne today.
“We should have way more out there on SMSFs and as the best-ever retirement strategy vehicle and here are the things you need to be careful of, and if some joker is telling you how to start an SMSF and you can take all your money out, then we have enough information to counter that out there.
“We’ve got some great content out there already, but amplified messages around that counter what some of the bad actors are doing.”
In response to Heffron’s comments, SMSF Association chief executive Peter Burgess announced the industry body was looking at a campaign along those lines.
“We are working on a project around changing the narrative around SMSFs to put some more positive messaging out there,” Burgess said.
“The concept has come from the [industry super fund] ‘compare the pair’ campaign and SMSFs were not even part of the conversation.
“We’re looking at what we can do there and we’ve got a project going on, which we will be rolling out during the course of this year.”