Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

As I mentioned, there is almost $13 billion in lost super and there are 6.4 million lost accounts. The Labor government have decided that we need to update our superannuation system in a number of ways and bring it into the 21st century. Of course, fees and charges are a contentious issue in superannuation—the more accounts you have, the more fees you pay. So it is very important to minimise this problem. We intend to introduce a policy of what is called auto rolling together. In this process TFNs will be used to identify and cross transfer a member’s lost account to their latest active account. In this way, we will significantly reduce the number of accounts. Individuals will be allowed to opt out if they do not want auto rolling together. This is a very positive initiative, a very practical solution to minimising the sheer number of lost superannuation accounts, which is a very serious problem in Australia. As I said, it is another example of a very positive practical policy to modernise our system. (Time expired)