JOHN: firstly, we are very focussed on encouraging strong and effective corporate governance. We consider the management of issues such as climate change begins with good corporate governance.Cognitive constructivist learning theory within listed companies, this should be led by directors and senior management. Companies that have effective corporate governance practices are better equipped to develop and implement effective strategies to manage risks and opportunities, and that of course includes climate risk.Cognitive constructivist learning theory

JOHN: we recognise that climate risk disclosure practices are still evolving (not only here in australia but internationally). What we do recommend is that directors and advisers of listed companies consider climate risk both as a short-term and a long-term risk, and directors and officers also continually reassess existing and emerging risks and how they apply to the company’s business.Cognitive constructivist learning theory

In fact, the law requires an OFR to include a discussion of climate risk when it could affect a company’s achievement of its financial performance or desired outcomes.Cognitive constructivist learning theory depending on the circumstances, disclosure of climate risk may also be required by the law in other circumstances, such as in a fundraising document like a prospectus or in a continuous disclosure announcement.Cognitive constructivist learning theory

The second main type of work that we do is working with stakeholders. So, people that are in the organisations that indigenous consumers need to interact with, like superannuation companies or banks, and helping them to understand how they change the way that they provide services to indigenous consumers to make sure that they have the same ability to access financial services as all other australians.Cognitive constructivist learning theory

And, the third thing that our team does is where indigenous people let us know about a problem that they’re having with a financial services provider, like a bank, or credit provider, and we can work with that community to take those issues to court and to ask a judge to decide whether or not the type of behaviour that is being experienced by the indigenous consumers is fair.Cognitive constructivist learning theory and that way we’re able to help indigenous consumers to solve big problems that they might be having in the way that they’re treated by certain companies.Cognitive constructivist learning theory

Nathan boyle: so, there are a lot of quite difficult rules around exactly how superannuation works. Sometimes it can seem really hard for people to understand exactly what superannuation is, but the easiest way to think about super is that super is like a special bank account that a person’s boss has to set up and put extra money in, on top of the wage that they earn each week.Cognitive constructivist learning theory that money can only be accessed by the person usually once they’re too old to work, and they retire.

Nathan boyle: I’m really excited to be able to talk about last week’s trip actually because it was a really fantastic trip and we got to meet with a whole lot of anangu.Cognitive constructivist learning theory so, last week we took a group of executives from superannuation funds that had customers in the APY lands, as well as government departments and senior people from the government departments that are involved in superannuation, out to the APY lands.Cognitive constructivist learning theory we visited 5 APY lands communities last week.

There were a few main aims of the trip. The first and definitely most important aim was that anangu had told us that while they had superannuation, they were finding it very very hard to get that super even when they were entitled to get it.Cognitive constructivist learning theory we wanted to help people get access to their super if they had met a reason why they could get their super because it’s their money.

The second reason was that we wanted to give people from the super funds and government departments, an ability to see firsthand, to see from anangu, how hard it was to access those services now so they can think ‘how can we make it better in the future’.Cognitive constructivist learning theory we hope that those people will remember the difficulties that they saw when they were in the APY lands this week when they’re thinking about making policy changes to make sure that it is easy to access superannuation for indigenous people right around the country.Cognitive constructivist learning theory so we think of it, if the superannuation funds actually get to see an aboriginal person who is having difficulties accessing their own money, that it has a much bigger impact for that person than just hearing stories from someone like myself or from ASIC about what the issues are.Cognitive constructivist learning theory taking them out to communities really lets them see it and think about how they can fix the problems.

Nathan boyle: there were a whole range of barriers that people were facing.Cognitive constructivist learning theory from things as simple as language, that many people in the APY lands are first language speakers and communicate mainly in pitjantjatjara. Access to interpreters to help them communicate with the funds, limited telephone coverage, as well as problems with identity documents.Cognitive constructivist learning theory they might have had different names and different dates of birth on two different formal identity documents.

Susan tilley: now we know that there aren’t many jobs in remote communities and that lots of people are living on income support benefits and unemployment money.Cognitive constructivist learning theory what are your thoughts on how the lack of work and the very small jobs market in remote communities, how that affects people’s ability to earn super, and what this might mean for people when they’re older and they can’t work, or have very little or no super?Cognitive constructivist learning theory

Nathan boyle: I think it is true that there are less jobs, less ability to find paid employment in some remote communities, and look it’s not really my area of expertise to talk about why there might or might not be jobs in remote communities, but there are a lot of issues like income support payments and these kinds of programs that really do intersect with the type of work that we do.Cognitive constructivist learning theory we try and be very clear if we can, about the types of issues that we can help people with and those that we can’t, because we want to make sure that we make the biggest difference we can and, as an example of that, one of the things that I think anangu taught the financial services industry representatives last week, was how intelligent they are and how much they want to know about their superannuation.Cognitive constructivist learning theory I think that the super reps that came learnt the importance of really making sure that they give anangu or other indigenous consumers information in a way that they can understand so that they can make an informed decision, and that’s the kind of work that we like to do with the industry and with other government departments.Cognitive constructivist learning theory

It was really great to see all of those senior people from both finance industry and government sitting down and learning from anangu, taking the time to listen to anangu about what their problems are in accessing super, finding out exactly what they do know and don’t know, and we’ve had a lot of comments already that people take the things they learnt from anangu and think ‘how can we make sure that we’re communicating better so that both anangu and the super industry can understand each other’s requirements and get the best out of superannuation.Cognitive constructivist learning theory

Susan tilley: we’d like to talk now about book-up, which is the practice of store owners taking customers debit cards and PIN numbers that are linked to a bank account into which their income is paid, and using that as security for purchases that they buy on credit.Cognitive constructivist learning theory this arrangement can give the store owners free and easy access to customers’ accounts and to their money, and a case of book-up ‘bad practice’ was taken to the federal court.Cognitive constructivist learning theory there have been more recent developments about this particular case, so it would be great if you could give us an update about the mintabie book-up case.Cognitive constructivist learning theory

Nathan boyle: it is important to say that although the court did find that mr kobelt, the man who was running the store in mintabie that we did take to court to ask the judge about whether or not his services were fair in terms of book-up, that the court found that he was operating a credit business without a licence, but that the way that he was operating the business wasn’t necessarily ‘bad practice’ under the law as it currently exists.Cognitive constructivist learning theory so, ASIC thinks that potentially the behaviour might have been enough to amount to unconscionable conduct, the legal standard that a court needs to find in order to say that something is unfair, and at the moment we have sought commission to ask the high court of australia to make a decision about whether or not the way mr kobelt ran his book-up practice was fair or not.Cognitive constructivist learning theory ASIC also thinks that even if the high court thinks that mr kobelt’s book-up was fair as the law is now, that we should do something to make sure that anangu have some rules that they can understand and indigenous people using book-up around the country can understand, to make sure that they are always treated the same way and fairly if they’re using book-up.Cognitive constructivist learning theory so, we’re talking to indigenous people at the moment to find out ‘are there some rules that we could bring in to make this work better for them’.Cognitive constructivist learning theory

Nathan boyle: I think just quickly, it’s important for me to say a massive thank you to anangu and to the communities in the APY lands that really welcomed us there and invited us into their communities last week.Cognitive constructivist learning theory the event was really well attended and on behalf of our partners that we ran the trip with, moneymob talkabout, first nations foundation, the australian taxation office, AUSTRAC, the department of human services, australian super, HESTA, super SA, qsuper, and prime super, we were all really appreciative and learnt a huge deal from your engagement in the program last week.Cognitive constructivist learning theory the last thing I want to say to people is a lot of the things that we’ve spoken about today and in financial services generally are very confusing.Cognitive constructivist learning theory you don’t have to know everything about financial services, we say to people it’s the same as being a little bit sick. If you’ve got a problem or you’re not quite sure about something in terms of your finances you don’t need to be your own doctor, you just need to know that there are places you can go to for help.Cognitive constructivist learning theory in the APY lands, moneymob financial counselling service is a really great place to go with your money questions.