By Patrice Pandeleos, Seven Communications >>

EVERY WORKING AUSTRALIAN invests in superannuation and has the right to understand where and how their money is being invested. Yet the default position by super funds seems to be that once the money is entrusted to them, investors lose that transparency.

Currently, research shows 66 percent of Australians have no idea where or which industries their super is invested in. Without your knowledge, your superannuation fund could potentially be investing in a range of unethical practices that don’t align with your values. 

A recent study from World Animal Protection found that 90 percent of super funds do not have a public animal welfare policy in place that prevents them from investing in live exports, factory farming or cosmetic testing on animals. The shocking data revealed that out of the top 200 superannuation funds in Australia, only 16 have current public animal welfare policies in place.  

This is the dark secret of the super industry. From intensive factory farming, to cosmetic testing on animals or live animal exports – your money could be supporting these cruel and disturbing practices. 

Superannuation sector at a glance

The Australian superannuation sector currently manages more than $3 trillion worth of assets, with the industry increasingly looking to invest in agricultural industries. The thing is, domestic equity markets can’t absorb this amount of investment, which is compelling super funds to invest in both offshore and unlisted (private) companies, and provide direct lending to private and listed entities.

To put it simply, unlisted private companies represent the majority of Australian agriculture, and are subject to much less public scrutiny than companies listed on the stock exchange.

The animal cruelty practices your super could be investing in

Without your knowledge, your super fund could be investing in live animal exports.

Millions of Australian sheep and cattle suffer unnecessarily during live export journeys every year. Thousands of animals die in transit because of the unbearable conditions on board the ships.

Many of those that survive the journey are handled roughly at their destination, killed while fully conscious and too many suffer outright brutality. 

Or perhaps it is cosmetic testing that they invest in? Thousands of terrified rabbits, mice and other animals are still being used for cosmetic testing across the world.

Cosmetic chemicals are cruelly put into their eyes or smeared onto their skin. While cosmetic companies don’t test their products on Australian animals, many brands that do test their products on animals overseas sell their products in Australia.

Industrial factory farming is also one of the leading causes of animal suffering that super funds invest in. Hundreds of millions of farmed animals are cruelly bred and raised in industrial factory farms to feed the insatiable demand for meat. 

Antibiotics are used to prevent confined and stressed animals from getting sick thanks to the poor conditions in which they are kept. Overuse of antibiotics on factory farms can and does lead to antibiotic-resistant superbugs that puts human health at risk, according to the World Health Organisation.  

Steps to being more transparent

Research by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia shows that most Australians, (66%), want a super fund that does not invest in animal cruelty.

The first step to knowing where your money is being invested, is asking your super fund about their animal welfare policy. If they don’t have one, ask why.  Also ask them what options they can provide to you if you don’t want your superannuation savings supporting cruel industries and practices.

Superannuation is something that many Australians forget about. But unless you provide your fund with guidance around industries you want to avoid, your fund can invest your money wherever they like.

They’ll listen to their customers too. With many super funds claiming to put customers at the core of what they do, Australians need to start putting pressure on them and demand transparency. 

How can I make the switch to an ethical super fund?

If you think you might need some independent advice about your investment choices, it may be a good idea to consult a certified financial adviser or you can contact the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to switch your super to another fund via the ATO.

The ATO makes it easy to switch your super to another fund.

It is time for the superannuation sector to be more transparent about where they are investing your hard-earned money. Your superannuation savings are not only shaping your personal future, but the future of animals and our planet.

About the author

Patrice Pandeleos is the founder of Seven Communications and has more than 21 years experience working in some of Australia’s highest profile media organisations including Channel 7, SCA, ARN and News Digital. Ms Padelos also has a solid understanding of the Australian political landscape, having campaigned to win the seats of Sydney and Heffron in two state elections for the Liberal Party.  www.sevencommunications.com.au

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OPINION by Scott Phillips>>

MERRY CHRISTMAS. Oh, I know it’s not actually Christmas. It’s better – it’s Federal Budget day!

No, I’m not even being facetious. You can send sympathy cards to my wife, if you feel the need, but I really, really like Budget day. For a few reasons.

First, I’m an economics nerd. And it doesn’t get more economically nerdy than our country’s profit and loss statement being announced live on television.

Second, I’m a politics nerd. It’s frustrating as hell most of the time, but I love the workings of democracy. 

And last – and perhaps most importantly – it’s the combination of the two. Despite my regular exasperation at the way politics is played, we are bloody lucky to live in a country where the democratic processes of government are not only followed, but are played out (largely) in front of us.

It is the embodiment of a lot of what our system is, and means, and while I don’t expect everyone to love it as much as I do, I hope most people at least appreciate that many people around the world aren’t this fortunate.

It is something to be acknowledged and treasured, I think, even if not actually celebrated.

Now, back to Christm… I mean the Budget.

WHAT A GREAT BUDGET SHOULD LOOK LIKE

There’s no point in me writing a wishlist. I’m not naive enough to think Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is waiting with baited breath to find out what I think he should put in the budget! And, of course, the ink is dry on the budget papers anyway.

But I’m going to have a stab at what the Budget perhaps should look like. Here are some things I’d like to see in tonight’s announcement.

First, I want to see a plan from the government on how we get the budget back into structural balance. Not actual balance, every year, but ‘structural balance’. See, it’s important that the government borrows money when the economy is stuttering, to provide a backstop and to stoke demand. Doing so means recessions should be shorter and less severe than otherwise might be the case.

But ‘structural balance’ means that in the really good times, the government has a surplus, taking some heat out of the economy, and offsetting previous deficits with surpluses. These two sides of the same coin mean a less volatile economy and society, with less extreme economic shocks.

We are – and I know this won’t come as a shock – a loooong way from a structural budget balance.

Frankly, I don’t think that will get addressed tonight, despite the rhetoric. And that’s a shame. I really don’t want to leave a messed-up national balance sheet to our kids.

Second, I’d love to see a focus on economic growth, including wages growth and unemployment. Even as a finance guy, I know GDP isn’t the only (or even the most important) indicator of national prosperity. But in a financial budget, it’s the headline number. I’d like to see our governments actually turning their hands to creating the right conditions for that prosperity. 

And the wages growth and employment has to come with it, otherwise the ‘prosperity’ is concentrated in too few hands, and too many of the profits might actually end up overseas. I have no issue with foreign ownership (that’s a whole other debate) but it’s reasonable to want prosperity to make it into the hands of all of us, not just some.

Third, I’d like to see governments really tackle infrastructure. But not in a ‘lots of bridges and tunnels’ kinda way. It’s easy to throw billions around (and hard to resist the temptation to direct those billions into politically sensitive seats), but the money needs to be invested thoughtfully, in projects that actually remove blockages in the most efficient way possible.

(I read a tweet yesterday suggesting you could put water tanks on every house in one rural town for a fraction of the cost of upgrading the local dam. Sure, the machinery would be smaller and the photo opportunities would be fewer, but that sounds like smarter spending to me!)

Next, I’d like to see the government properly fund action on climate change. It’s true that Australia can’t offset the rest of the world’s emissions, but the least we can do – in our own interest – is be responsible for our own mess, and then use that example to cajole other countries into doing their bit. And frankly, depending on who you listen to, it might actually be a positive economic return on investment. At the very least, we can feel good about the country we’re leaving to our kids.

INCREASE SOME TAXES HERE AND THERE

You’ll notice nothing about taxes in the summary above. Of course we all want to pay less tax – it’s just natural. But I don’t think we, as a country, need to collect less tax.

How’s that for controversial? 

The problem is that we see every single dollar of tax taken out of our pay packets, but we don’t value the services we get for that money in the same way.

We expect the roads to be sealed and smooth. We want to know that the coppers, fireys and ambos will come when we call them. We want to know the schools, unis, hospitals and national parks are there when we want to use them. And that pensions will be paid, in full and on time.

But we don’t see the value in the same way, dollar for dollar, as we do our taxes that come out of our pay.

That doesn’t make those things any less important. It just means we need to consciously remember them.

Not only that, but with the budget deep in the red, it would be irresponsible to cut taxes right now.

(Yes, I know they’ll probably throw cash at us, tonight. And probably cut fuel excise. Both wrong and irresponsible, in my view. How’s that for an unpopular view?)

In fact, the one tax I would increase is on the extraction and sale of Australia’s national resources. A former government levied a ‘super profits tax’ on miners, but I think that was the wrong way to think about the target. They relied on people thinking ‘hey, they make too much money’, but Australians have never really worried about that, per se. What we have always focussed on is fairness. Which is where my take is different.

Resources companies dig or drill for resources that have been formed over millions of years, and that were the property of our forebears and their forebears. If a company is going to take them out of the ground, forever, then sell them, it strikes me that fairness suggests the country should be very well compensated for their sale. Not because the miner is making a ‘super profit’, but because if you’re going to dig up and sell off part of our country, the country should get a fair price for that asset.

So, I wouldn’t levy an extra or higher tax on profits. I’d charge more, per tonne, ounce and barrel, for those assets themselves. I’d also put the proceeds into a sovereign wealth fund, or similar, so those natural resources can have a perpetual benefit, rather than being simply taxed and spent once. Taking an ounce of gold that’s been in the ground for millenia and spending the tax proceeds in one year, leaving nothing for future generations seems, to me, the epitome of (unintended) selfishness.

PAY UP, WEALTHY CORPORATIONS

I do think, by the way, that our Federal Government (and it’s been the same under the administration of both major parties) collects way too little tax from the wealthy and the major corporations, particularly the multinationals (Australian-based, as well as foreign).

These groups can afford the best accountants and lawyers, and the poor old taxpayer is being played for a mug. For all of the effort that goes into cracking down on ‘welfare cheats’, for precious little result (and hot tip: $5 says the government announces a program to do just that, tonight), bugger all effort, in any relative sense, is being spent on either improving legislation and/or enforcement of collection from the big end of town.

And I’m no anti-capitalist. I think our system of democratic capitalism, though inevitably flawed, is one of the best around. The profit motive is one of the primary drivers of growth and progress.

But it needs to be well-managed and appropriately legislated.

I haven’t done the numbers, but I dare say if the law was improved to actually ensure the government captures the tax revenue those laws were originally intended to collect, we might be able to fund much or all of my wishlist, above. And maybe get the budget closer to structural balance.

I’ve joked on Twitter that I’d only need 12 months as Treasurer to significantly fix our system -- tax collection in particular. And then? Well, let’s just say I would annoy enough people that any chance of re-election would be out of the question.

Which probably means I’ve got it just about right.

It also probably means I’ve offended or upset a small minority of my readers, today. I would simply ask one thing: rather than being upset or offended, please be motivated to add your voice – even in stark opposition to mine, if you are so motivated – to the national debate.

Politics is at its best when it’s a contest of ideas among engaged, informed citizens. It’s at its worst when people simply don’t bother forming or expressing a view.

So here’s to our very Australian form of representative democracy.

And Merry Budget! 

About the author

Scott Phillips is the chief investment officer at The Motley Fool Australia financial investment advisory group. He is a regular commentator on radio, television and in national newspapers on economics and private investment . www.fool.com.au

OPINION:  Authored by Praveen Tomy >>

THE CONSTRUCTION sector has been getting bad press lately.

With high-profile insolvencies, project delays, and supply chain issues blowing budgets out, the past two years have brought incredible and unprecedented challenges to the sector.

The July Australian Constructors Association report says that double digit inflation in a single digit margin industry raises new issues for constructors. Fixed prices set several years in advance leave little room for manoeuvre in unpredictable markets.

If you can capture the right information and build on it, you can make the future far more predictable.

For example, insolvencies are often the product of underbidding, as a firm will struggle to accurately quote their work without long-term certainty on project costs. In the absence of accurate data, underbidding will continue to be a risk.

Maybe you can’t see exactly where a bushfire will start, or how long the damages of a flood will last, but you can build up a comprehensive plan that is resilient to these factors, and will bring you as close to predicting the future as possible. 

A good project plan counters risk head on, and shares information between design and strategy, supply chain acquisitions, engineering, labour hire, training, construction management and more.

Data for pre-empting crises

According to the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), the sector is facing rising prices, supply chain constraints, and skilled labour shortages. The sector is looking for new ways to build predictability and counter these risks.

Predictability is a requirement for a cost and time-effective project. This requires visibility across the entire lifecycle, from design to implementation. Few builders, designers, or subcontractors have implemented the kind of tech needed to get this. This has knock-on effects to how these parties quote their bids.

If a firm needs to undercut a competitor to win work, and doesn’t have accurate costings, the risks are astronomical.

Adapting is much easier than many believe. The future of work depends on constantly improving productivity, which sounds hard. But the technology already exists to side-step these issues.

Data science has become as crucial to construction as engineering. In fact, it makes for better engineering.

Starting a project without full data visualisation is like building a skyscraper from the top down – it’s expensive and probably won’t work.

Bidding for projects

Data is underused in the construction sector, with firms following dated methods to calculate costs. It could be argued that insolvencies from underbidding often come down to calculation errors.

Calculating a bid price involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the entire supply chain, including subcontractors and skilled labour availability. Firms also need to manage safety concerns across the entire business. This is usually based on an assessment of subcontractor past performance, using data silos or Excel spreadsheets.

But these spreadsheets fail to capture the whole scale of interconnectedness between supply chains, business units and staff. Every element has a price, and unless you can get a visualisation over the lifespan of a project, you’re not basing quotes on enough information.

Variables span safety compliance, emissions released in construction, the cost of sponsoring visas for expert qualified staff, and even impacts of weather disruptions and climate change.

Without good insight into these factors, builders attempting to win work by lowering costs wind up seriously undervaluing themselves. Cutting profit margins and aggressively pricing work leaves a very slim gap for error.

There’s no cookie-cutter approach to bidding on projects. Every piece of work is different.

Even within a single company, a truly accurate price for similar projects is going to vary wildly – but the costs will impact the whole business. It is dangerous to rely on old habits, or old underperforming supply chains.

Value for money does not equal lowest cost

Ultimately, a company that can clearly demonstrate value for money is going to be the best placed to lead a project to completion. This involves showing exactly what costs are involved and providing full transparency. It also means gaining visibility over unnecessary costs and liabilities.

Data helps. Once a firm has established high-quality data analytics for its costings, proving their value will be simple.

Effective project visualisation provides clever insights into what is holding a firm back. It could be an unproductive supply chain partner, or even funding poor fuel efficiency vehicles – every litre of diesel counts.

A plan involving data is more responsive and resilient, and massively reduces business risk. This value proposition can help ease hesitations from consumers.

Builders could use artificial intelligence (AI) to demonstrate a build scenario. This allows firms to fully visualise a project from start to finish, and quickly identify any quirks or errors that might exist.

Meanwhile, remote communications enables teams to collaborate across the business, creating a fully transparent workspace – one where no hidden cost goes undiscovered.

Once a project is off the ground, having access to up-to-date data informs better and faster decision making. If you’ve got a water leak on one floor, knowing exactly what was done could help mitigate the problem for the rest of the building before it becomes unsalvageable.

This quick thinking could be the difference between project failure and success.

Operating in extreme circumstances is a challenge for any business, and predicting these circumstances is even harder. Building in resilience throughout the entire project lifecycle is more than just guessing at the future, it’s about understanding how the whole business – and its projects – click together and operate.

If the construction sector continues to operate on pre-pandemic mindsets, we may see these issues continue to plague the industry.

For the sector to weather black swan events, an internal transformation is imperative. Habits need to be broken, and firms need to understand – not assume – risks and rewards. Firms can no longer neglect the role of data in this context.

As they say, the data poor pay twice. 

Based in Sydney, Praveen Tomy is the regional director for the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) at Autodesk Construction.

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OPINION: By Sarah Boorman >>

FOR ALL THE PROGRESS that has been made, women continue to remain underrepresented in leadership positions – and healthcare sector leadership is no different.

According to a recent survey by the Advancing Women in Healthcare Leadership (AWHL) project, despite making up 75 percent of the healthcare workforce, women are only 45 percent of public hospital board chairs, 39 percent of private hospital CEOs and 38 percent of state and federal chief medical or health officers.

Women are the majority of the workforce but do not hold an equitable share of healthcare leadership positions. 

Additionally, the fact that women in leadership positions continue to be paid less than their male counterparts is a big problem. And women in leadership rarely have the luxury of stepping back from work commitments which makes it extremely difficult to balance the demands of parental commitments – which increased a hundredfold since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sad reality is that until the pay gap is equitable, women will need to continually overcome unreasonable demands on their time to step up into leadership roles.

HYBRID WORK MAKING THINGS WORSE

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard also warns of the effects of working from home for women, stating that when given hybrid work locations as an option most men are choosing to return to the office while most women are choosing to work from home so that they continue to balance domestic commitments.

Ms Gillard says the potential effects of this choice for women is that they will be seen as less committed than their male counterparts by their employers and also miss out on those ‘water cooler’ conversations that can lead to opportunities like taking the lead on a big project.

I truly believe that so much of what holds women back in the workplace is founded in society’s belief in a woman’s position. When I look around school at pick up time, 80 percent of the parents are women; Mother’s Day stall gifts continue to include items like oven mitts and decorative pegs; correspondence that comes home from school is almost always addressed to me. Honestly, we have not come as far as we think we have!

HEALTHCARE SYSTEM HODGE-PODGE

The Australian healthcare system is a mess of fragmented and inefficient systems that are poorly integrated. Women in healthcare leadership have the opportunity to shape the healthcare system for the better.

Melinda Gates writes in her book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World: “You have to understand human needs in order to effectively deliver services and solutions to people. Delivery systems matter. Getting tools to people who need them in ways that encourage people to use them. It requires getting around barriers of poverty, distance, ignorance, doubt, stigma, and religious and gender bias. It means listening to people, learning what they want, what they’re doing, what they believe and what barriers they face.”

I think that because women have been charged for so long in meeting everybody else’s needs we are so uniquely placed to do this work and actually deliver a system that works.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE COUNTS

My personal journey in healthcare leadership has involved long hours and a lot of sacrifice – prioritising work over any kind of social life or hobbies. But all along, having the courage and privilege to speak my mind and #BreakTheBias has been important to me.

I say ‘privilege’ because I think it’s important. Fortunately, I come from a wealthy-enough family and so I've always had the backup I needed to call out sexism or any form of discrimination from those in-charge.

The need to do so arises a lot, particularly in corporate environments. But what I’ve learnt from those encounters is that perpetrators/people like that more often than not respect your honest opinion.

I know a lot of smart women who don’t speak up or change the way they show up in key moments. My advice to them would be to be authentic and courageous. Don’t dumb yourself down, don’t hold back your opinions – even if you think they’ll upset someone; in fact, especially if you think they’ll upset someone. 

If you have something to say then say it. Don’t tolerate people, call them out if you can. Show up for women with less power than you. The more women that have the courage to take this path, the more we pave the way for future generations so that they hopefully won’t need to overcome the same struggles we did. This is how we break the bias.

EMPOWER EACH OTHER

It is so important for us to empower each other as women. And I’m privileged to be surrounded by some of the strongest women leaders I know and look up to.

My role models are people I know rather than public figures because I feel closer to their journeys.

I’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing women in Scale My Clinic’s Project X community, all of whom are leaders in their field.

Julie Thompson is a general manager of a group of medical practices in Yeppoon, Queensland. I’m in awe of her positivity and dedication.

Emily Carroll is the co-owner of Pear Tree Family Practice and a business coach at Scale My Clinic. Dr Carroll’s  ability to balance ownership, management, consulting and parenting commitments is a constant source of inspiration.

So many other talented female owners, managers and nurses whom I work with each day remind me that the cause we are fighting for is worth the effort. And I can’t stress enough the importance of surrounding yourself with strong women and lifting each other up.

It really is true that when women support each other, incredible things happen. So, to all my fellow colleagues in healthcare and leadership, let us take a pledge to support one another and collectively #BreakTheBias today and every day. 

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