The federal government has released a discussion paper and opened up public consultation on reforms to prevent family and domestic violence perpetrators from accessing victims’ superannuation benefits.
Under current superannuation law, a super fund may be required to pay death benefits to a person who used family and domestic violence against the deceased.
The consultation follows the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services on the financial services regulatory framework in relation to financial abuse.
The paper released today proposes three broad options for reform. The first option is broad trustee discretion, the second is a prescribed approach, which would involve legislative amendments to enable the setting aside of a person as an eligible beneficiary in certain circumstances involving family and domestic violence, and the third option is referral to deceased estate or court.
It was explained the consultation was to clarify treatment of retirement savings death benefits in instances where superannuation funds are acting as trustees. In the case of SMSFs, where members are trustees and they could also be a perpetrator of family and domestic violence against a deceased member, additional consultation may be required.
Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek pointed out superannuation is supposed to give people security and dignity in retirement.
“There are too many instances where families have watched on in horror as a woman has had her life made a misery by someone either physically assaulting her or controlling her in a way that has isolated and degraded her,” Plibersek said at Parliament House in Canberra today.
“The idea that that tormentor should be rewarded by receiving superannuation after the death of that woman is adding untold misery to the surviving family members and friends of those women.”
Submissions are open until 15 April with Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Daniel Mulino indicating that was a reasonable amount of time given the complexity of the issues.
“We didn’t want to rush that part of the process and then we’ll very quickly look through those options,” Mulino revealed.
The government is encouraging family and domestic violence organisations, frontline support services, the superannuation sector and the wider community to make submissions.
