When Anthony Albanese was voted in as Australia’s prime minister in May, the first words of his victory speech promised a better future for the country’s marginalized Indigenous people. There is plenty of work to do. “Generation after generation of Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents and brought up outside of culture, outside of language, and in many ways provided almost a slave workforce,” said Linda Burney, who on June 1 became the first Indigenous woman to be appointed minister for Indigenous affairs, in a Bloomberg TV interview. “Those things impact on today. You cannot divorce the past from the present.”
Two stark examples of this legacy are a yawning wealth gap that sees Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people retire with about half the savings of other Australians, and shorter life expectancies that give them less time to enjoy retirement.
Australia’s mixed public-private pension system is often held up as a model for the rest of the world. It combines a government-funded pension—which is means-tested, so wealthier people don’t receive one—with tax-advantaged savings plans called superannuation funds. “Super,” as that program is nicknamed, is similar to a 401(k) in the US except employers make mandatory contributions of about 10% of an employee’s salary. The funds have built up significant nest eggs for many Australians and have helped the country’s pensions industry grow to A$3.4 trillion ($2.4 trillion) in assets.
