Our money, our choice should be the super rule

Over the next 20 years there will be a significant exit of funds from superannuation as ageing members’ balances are passed to their estates. Any issue the government and big super have with members delaying access to their balances will be sorted over this time frame. What is the real agenda behind this conversation?

Michelle Wilson, Windsor, Qld

‘Vertically integrated’ advice models

I read with interest the article “Advice is the missing link in super’s retirement debate” (Chanticleer). It says: “This raises two issues. The first is that the provision of advice was decimated after the banking royal commission, where the conflicts of vertically integrated models – advisers pushing wealth products from their own shops – were rightly exposed. As a result of the regulatory changes, super funds are unable ... to provide the level of advice they would like.”

The Quality of Advice Review advocates that super funds offer advice to members. I am struggling to understand how that isn’t a “vertically integrated model” in which “advisers” can only give advice about their own super fund’s products. How does this serve consumers, given that there may well be “better” or “more appropriate” income stream products elsewhere?

John Hall, North Lakes, Qld

We can’t afford to delay decarbonisation

Despite featuring in the TIME 100 Climate list, Macquarie chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake sees the energy transition as a “meandering journey”. With all due respect, this is not the time to meander and smell the roses.

The 100,000 delegates who have descended on Dubai for COP28 are testament to the growing energy and enthusiasm for addressing climate change. As John Connor explains, UN climate meetings shape domestic climate policy and Australia has an opportunity to capitalise (“Decarbonise fast, or risk being left behind”).

Although there has been significant progress on finance and other solutions, the world is watching for the final COP28 wording on the cause: fossil fuels (“Climate chaos needs to be curbed at source”, Letters).

Can leaders finally agree to phase out these pollutants? Words matter, and for the urgency of the decarbonisation task to be realised, and the journey turned into a race, the words “phase out” must be included.

Amy Hiller, Kew, Vic

No comment because no one asked me

The article “Carbon scheme critic says regulator playing dirty” states that I “did not respond to a request for comment”.

It is pretty hard to respond when no request was sent to me. On that, I’m sure Professor Andrew Macintosh and I would agree.

Professor Ian Chubb, former chief scientist

Rio Tinto drops the ball on climate action

Rio Tinto’s announcement that it is putting growth ahead of emissions reductions could not be more poorly timed – it comes during COP28 in a global stocktake year that almost certainly will show we are not doing enough to keep warming below 1.5 degrees (“Rio Tinto defers carbon spending to chase growth”). Sub-Saharan Guinea, from which Rio Tinto will extract tens of millions of tonnes of iron ore per decade, is one of the countries most affected by climate change and the least able to adapt.

Rio Tinto’s annual profits in recent years have averaged over $US40 billion, yet the company spent only “$US94 million on decarbonisation projects last year” instead of the $US833 million it was required to spend. Rio can’t have it both ways.

Earlier this year it wanted the government to increase direct grants from $600 million to $6 billion to help invest in technology to meet tougher emissions reductions standards under the safeguard mechanism (“Rio Tinto wants special treatment for aluminium emissions”). It’s time for Rio Tinto and its shareholders to walk the talk. Deferring climate action for growth makes climate change worse.

Ray Peck, Hawthorn, Vic

For Charles, perhaps a raft fit for a king?

So, the late Queen Elizabeth II’s eldest son is visiting Australia next year. That will give the Brits time to build a series of rafts to accommodate him and his entourage for the journey. Heaven help he would want to add to the globe’s climate issues. I hear balsa is eminently suitable – Thor Heyerdahl did it, and he considered himself an ordinary person, not a sainted monarch with dubious credentials.

Mary Martin, Hawthorne, Qld

Where does Bullock get her data?

“Income slump eats into stimulus buffer” is Michael Read’s second report highlighting the steady decline in Australian household incomes over an eight-year period. And it comes on the back of his coverage of an OECD finding, “Australia records biggest income decline in the developed world”. Which leaves many a battling punter wondering just which empirical evidence our newly minted RBA governor had gleaned before you reported her bold declaration, “Households coping well, says Bullock”.

Kaz Kazim, Randwick, NSW

I’m 84 and can’t cope with CommSec any more

About two months ago, you reported that a number of CommSec international equity clients were very unhappy at administrative changes to their accounts. A principal complaint was that our existing accounts were all cancelled and no transactions were permitted until a complex new online application was completed and accepted – all because CommSec had changed its external custodian.

I informed CommSec I did not wish to continue my account under the new structure and would sell my shares and close it. I was told I would have to open a new online account before my shares could be sold. I spent over an hour on the phone trying to do this, without success. I then lodged a complaint with CBA customer relations, which simply repeated the unreasonable detailed requests by CommSec and added some extra bureaucratic requirements.

I am 84 years old, care for a wife with dementia, and don’t have the time for these issues. I had a similar experience with CommSec in 2022 which cost me countless hours.

Richard Giles, Toorak, Victoria

Bitcoin the purest speculative bubble

Tom Richardson is unduly credulous when reporting the claims of crypto spruiker Richard Galvin. The supply of bitcoins will not halve in April. It will just increase by less from then. The extent and timing of this event has been known for years, so should be already priced in.

In any case, price depends on the balance between demand and supply, not just supply. As bitcoin generates no income and has little use, demand for it depends on whether more people will be lured into buying it in the hope of future price rises. It is perhaps the purest example of a speculative bubble.

John Hawkins, University of Canberra