That Super Show
That Super Show brings you the latest news, insights and industry interviews to help Australian superannuation professionals improve retirement outcomes for Australians. Hosted by Sarah Penn, CEO of Mayflower Consulting, and Neil Benson, CEO of Superware.
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Jazz Festivals, Housing and Super: The Unintended Side Effects of Regulation
<p>#35 Neil Benson and Sarah Penn break down the real impact of recent superannuation reforms, the ongoing debate over fund consolidation, and the complex trade-offs facing Australia's retirement system.</p><p>The heart of this episode is a growing tension: while Australia’s super system is lauded for low pension spending and strong retirement outcomes, it faces mounting criticism—especially from politicians—over housing affordability, administrative complexity, and perceived failures in policy. Neil Benson and Sarah Penn challenge claims that compulsory super is a “public policy failure”, pointing to Australia’s pension spend (2.3% of GDP) being dramatically lower than the OECD average...
FSC Chief Breaks Down Government's Consumer Protections and Industry Reform Address
<p>#34. The new era of super legislation: how much is too much—and who pays? Sarah and Neil dig into the government's proposed reforms with Financial Services Council CEO Blake Briggs, uncovering the central tension: how do you craft effective consumer protections after the First Guardian and Shield disasters, without layering on so much complexity and cost that it stifles the industry and confuses members?</p><p>The discussion pulls no punches on who shoulders the fallout from bad actors—with good advisers, super funds, and even unrelated sectors picking up the multimillion-dollar CSLR tab for a handful of failures.</p><p...
Bringing AI to Super: Australian Food Super’s New Member-Friendly App and the Future of Advice
<p>#33. Australian Food Super’s Dan Musson and InvestStream’s Gary Bryan join Neil and Sarah to dig into the realities - not just the AI-pilled promise - of using AI to make super advice genuinely usable for everyday Australians.</p><p>Most digital super tools feel like bland calculators or force members into a Woolworths-like DIY experience, making the complex even harder. Australian Food Super wanted not just self-service, but truly member-friendly advice, especially for a membership base often new to the Australian workforce or with limited financial and language literacy. Their answer was a new app, built with Inve...
Prime and Aware Merger, Fee Hikes, and the Pricing Challenge in Superannuation
<p>#32. Neil Benson unpacks the growing pressure on Australian superannuation funds to clearly explain what members pay for, and whether scale, complexity, and rising costs are delivering genuine value.</p><p>Central tension: As more funds merge, raise fees, or tweak insurance, the old argument that "bigger is better" isn't enough. Members, regulators, and boards now demand concrete proof that these changes actually improve retirement outcomes, service, and member experience—especially as costs climb and the product gets more complex to explain.</p><p>* Blooper: Prime Super's 140,000 members would represent 10% of the enlarged Aware Super member base, not 1%. Neil should ha...
Xavier O'Halloran: Superannuation's Customer Service Failures
<p>#31. The episode digs into why customer service in superannuation call centres is consistently failing, what that means for members at moments of real need, and whether mandatory service standards are required to fix it.</p><p>Xavier O'Halloran of Super Consumers Australia joins Neil Benson and Sarah Penn to break down the findings of a first-of-its-kind research project: not one super fund met basic customer care expectations, with average scores across the industry barely scraping 49 out of 100.</p><p>The conversation moves beyond the numbers to challenge assumptions about what good service actually looks like in super, question the...
Transforming Death Claims Handling: How CBUS Super Tackled Super’s Most Challenging Process
<p>#30. Cohosts Neil Benson and Sarah Penn chat with Kerry Vogel, Head of Insurance Claims, Performance and Delivery at CBUS Super. </p><p>Today's conversation focuses on how CBUS Super responded to major failings in handling death claims by moving beyond surface fixes and fundamentally redesigning the process.</p><p>The central argument: Australian super funds create unnecessary complexity and distress for grieving families by relying on outdated, paperwork-heavy systems, and CBUS has proven it’s possible (and necessary) to remove those frictions even within tight regulatory constraints.</p><p>A key theme that emerged was how stripping away non-binding an...
From Barbell to Ecosystem: Rethinking Member Engagement and Advice in Super with Duncan McPherson
<p>#29. Guest Duncan McPherson, founder of Borromean Consulting and former Link Advice CEO, joins Sarah and Neil to dig into the evolving intersection of advice and superannuation delivery. </p><p>The discussion challenges the old idea that there’s a single operating model for advice within funds, arguing instead that the critical issue is how and where each fund draws the line between in-house and external capabilities—a threshold that's now shifting under regulatory, commercial, and technological pressures.</p><p>The conversation highlights a growing urgency for funds to modernise advice: digital advice is no longer a "bolt-on" but must be w...
Supercharged Conversations: Unpacking the Future Fund Admin Forum 2026
<p>#28. Join Sarah and Neil as they recap from day two at the Future Fund Admin 2026 forum in Sydney.</p><p>This episode argues that super funds can’t achieve real member experience improvements by relying only on surface-level changes—like updated communication—without fixing the underlying systems and rules that shape every customer interaction. Through firsthand stories and honest discussion, the hosts show why complexity and legacy processes frustrate members and staff alike, and why personalisation efforts often walk a fine line between helpful and intrusive. The episode pushes leaders to rethink what “good” looks like and to get comfortabl...
Day One Highlights from the IBRC Future Fund Admin Conference
<p>#27. Join Sarah and Neil as they recap from day one at the Future Fund Admin 2026 forum in Sydney.</p><p>This episode grapples with whether Australia’s superannuation industry will really consolidate to just a handful of mega funds—and what that could mean for members, small funds, and fund administrators caught between regulatory expectations and practical realities. Sarah and Neil unpack how the growing focus on members’ real experiences is colliding with operational constraints, regulatory change, and technology.</p><p>Who should listen:</p>Fund administrators weighing the costs and risks of consolidation, especially anyone managing a small or nic...
Industry-Platform Partnerships, AI in Member Comms, APRA Cautions, and Telstra Super’s Big Merger
<p>#26. Co-hosts Neil Benson and Sarah Penn break down the latest superannuation shake-ups and tech trends.</p><h2>Highlights</h2>Industry super funds are now experiencing net outflows to retail funds, with $4.3 billion switching over two years. Sarah Penn questions whether proposed partnerships between industry funds and retail platforms actually benefit members, suggesting they may simply repackage underused direct investment models. Australians are warming up again to financial advice, with both hosts championing the difference quality advice makes.ART is using AI to improve the readability of member communications and transcribe adviser meetings, sparking a debate on literacy levels and...
