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The analysis by Super Consumers Australia found retirees have access to far fewer protections in the superannuation system than their younger counterparts.

It also found that almost a third of retirement products (29 per cent) are significant underperformers, producing "much lower returns than their peers".

A group of grey-haired people dine at an outdoor cafe.

And that is hitting older Australians hard in their hip pocket.

"A retiree starting with $250,000 in super in the worst performing options could earn approximately $57,000 to $205,000 less in investment returns across a typical retirement," the report states.

It added that most retirees who are invested in the underperforming funds have no idea that they're missing out on potential earnings.

"The superannuation system is meant to provide Australians with a dignified retirement, not leave them in the dark about whether their money is working for them," Super Consumers Australia deputy chief executive Dr Katrina Ellis said.

Since 2021, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has evaluated super products, comparing them to industry benchmarks.

Those that fail the performance test two years in a row are barred from taking on new beneficiaries.

However, the test doesn't apply to products for retirees.

Super Consumers Australia said its findings showed the need for the government – which is currently reviewing the settings – to expand the performance test.

"It's unreasonable that a 64-year-old is protected by a performance test, yet the moment they retire and move into an identical product, that safeguard disappears," Ellis said.

"Retirees deserve the same protections as workers. Without them, people risk losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement income and living standards will suffer…

"The federal government must extend the performance test and comparison tool to ensure retirees can avoid the duds and put their money in better-performing funds.

"Anything less is leaving retirees exposed."

The Financial Services Council (FSC), though, said it would not be appropriate for the same test to be applied to retirement products.

A superannuation ad on a tram in Sydney.

"Retirement products combine investment design with other important features that support varied individual retirement needs such as providing flexible access to cash when they need it, providing a sustainable income stream, and managing longevity risk," FSC chief executive Blake Briggs said.

"There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to retirement.

"A performance test that focuses only on investment returns risks leading people out of products that may be appropriate for their circumstances… any expansion of this test to retirement products would be inappropriate.

"The industry strongly supports transparency for retirement products to assist those approaching retirement. However, Treasury's work on a retirement product data framework is a more appropriate step towards this."

In a hotly contested finding, the Super Consumers Australia report pointed the finger at four institutions.

It claimed that the "majority of retirement options with 10 years' investment history at AMP, Russell Investments, Colonial First State and Rest underperformed compared to peers across all growth categories".

"This suggests there may be broader problems with the investment approach at these funds, not simply poor investment choices in a single option," it added.

However, those findings were strenuously denied by AMP, which described them as "narrow analysis", "irresponsible claims", and "misleading".

"The report fails to recognise that AMP has delivered strong relative returns for our retirement members for the past three years, in addition to our super offers achieving returns in excess of 13 per cent for the past three years to September," a spokesperson said.

"The report also fails to take into proper account the different objectives of retirement products, or consider contemporary lifetime income retirement solutions, which are delivering significantly better outcomes for retirees."

Colonial First State also slammed the findings as "not accurate".

"The report has selectively focused on 12 options out of the total CFS FirstChoice menu which has more than 200 investment options," a spokesperson said.

"In regard to options in the report, APRA assessed the accumulation equivalent of these same retirement investment options and they passed the annual superannuation performance test," they added.

Rest also rejected any suggestion its options were underperforming.

"Our Rest pension product is recognised for its value and quality by independent ratings agencies using established methodologies," a spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Russell Investments, meanwhile, said the figures cisted for the company's options "are not accurate".

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White House attacks journalist who Donald Trump called ‘piggy’

2025-11-19 FreeNews

The White House has defended President Donald Trump after he called a female reporter "piggy".

Trump was aboard Air Force One on Friday US time, speaking with reporters, CNN video of the incident shows.

Initially asked what Epstein had meant when he said in an email Trump "knew about the girls" the disgraced financier and sex offender's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was recruiting from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

"I know nothing about that. They would have announced a long time ago ," Trump said.

He then tried to shift focus to Epstein's associations with prominent Democrat figures including former president Bill Clinton and former treasury secretary Larry Summers.

"Jeffrey Epstein and I had a very bad relationship for many years," Trump said.

Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump

Another reporter began to ask, "If there's nothing incriminating in the files sir", before being brutally cut off.

"Quiet. Quiet, piggy," Trump said, leaning forward to point at the woman.

When asked about the insult, the White House levelled non-specific accusations at the journalist.

"This reporter behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way towards her colleagues on the plane," the statement read.

"If you're going to give it, you have to be able to take it."

No details were given.

At the time, Trump's opposition to the release of the Epstein files was still his public-facing stance, though later on the weekend he would undergo an about-face and urge Republicans to vote for making them public.

Trump has also pledged to sign off on the file's release if it passes the House and the Senate.

The journalist's organisation, Bloomberg, issued a statement in her defence.

"Our White House journalists perform a vital public service, asking questions without fear or favour," the statement read.

"We remain focused on reporting issues of public interest fairly and accurately."

His insulting berating of the reporter, meanwhile, has begun to come in for some criticism from the US media.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper posted on X that the insult was "disgusting and completely unacceptable", while former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson said it was "degrading".

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‘Very, very tough’: ANZ CEO not proud of decision to lay off 3500 workers

2025-11-19 FreeNews

ANZ chief executive Nuno Matos admitted it was "very tough" for him to cut 3500 jobs under his restructuring plan, before adding that half of the senior executive leadership had also been let go.

Australia's fourth-biggest bank is trying to reverse course after a series of costly scandals, and has signalled that mass redundancies were necessary to ensure future success.

The company is also under fire for the mistreatment of thousands of customers, including deceased ones, and lying to the federal government.

ANZ chief executive Nuno Matos during the Review of Australia's four major banks hearing with the Standing Committee on Economics.

Appearing at the House economics committee's review into the "big four" banks in Canberra today, Matos was grilled about whether it was fair that thousands were losing their jobs in the restructuring, while executives only lost their bonuses over the scandals.

Matos apologised for the failings and insisted that the senior executive team was held to "one of the most severe demonstrations of accountability observed in my professional life", with four out of nine members no longer with the company.

"They are not in the company because we thought new leadership was needed to weather the remediation and the new journey of the company," he said.

Matos, however, conceded that he was not proud to let go of so many of his staff.

"I need to say the obvious: letting go of approximately 3500 people and impacting them and their families is not something I am proud, is not something I would like to do, not something a human being likes to do," he said.

"It is very, very tough."

ANZ announced in September that 3500 full-time roles and 1000 contractor jobs would be cut to eliminate duplication, work that did not support priorities and sharpen focus in what it described as a "rapidly evolving and highly competitive banking environment".

The bank said there would be a "limited impact" on customer-facing frontline roles, with the majority to be focused at the headquarters in Melbourne.

The cuts are estimated to cost the bank $585 million, contributing to a $1.1 billion hit to the bottom line in its half-year updates.

The historic $240 million fine the bank was handed came after ASIC found it had acted "unconscionably" in dealing with the Australian government while managing a $14 billion bond deal, and incorrectly reporting its bond trading data to the government by overstating the volumes by tens of billions of dollars over almost two years.

The fine has yet to be approved by the federal court.

Matos insisted that the redundancies would help the bank work in a simpler manner, creating an expanded frontline and shrunken headquarters.

He added that he wanted to maintain a "constructive relationship" with the Finance Sector Union, which had been critical of the bank's leadership.

"While the bank congratulates itself for raking in $5.7 billion, thousands of its employees are living with anxiety, burnout and dread," Finance Sector Union national president Wendy Streets said last week.

"We're hearing from people who can't sleep, who've developed panic attacks, and who dread going to work.

"ANZ's profits are up, but so is the human cost. The bank has a culture of uncertainty so severe it's making people sick."

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One hurdle remains in race to release Epstein files – Trump himself

2025-11-19 FreeNews

US President Donald Trump called the Epstein files a "Democratic hoax" for months, but now his Justice Department has been ordered to publicly release them – and it's just his signature that stands in the way.

But what does that actually mean, and what comes next in the Jeffrey Epstein saga?

The US House of Representatives voted 427-1 in favour of publicly releasing all Justice Department investigative files into the convicted sex offender on Tuesday (US time).

The Epstein files: What can we expect to learn once they are released?

Just hours later, the Senate unanimously agreed to pass the bill.

Trump, who railed against releasing the Epstein files before suddenly changing his tune this week, said he would sign the bill if it passes both chambers of Congress.

What happens next with the Epstein files?

Now that the Senate has agreed to pass the House-backed Epstein Files Transparency Act, it will pass to Trump himself.

The legislation will be transmitted to his desk as soon as it arrives to the Senate.

When that will actually happen remains unclear.

The Senate has yet to receive the bill from the House and it typically takes some time to transmit legislation from one chamber to another.

It could still be hours before Senate receives the bill and can pass it on to the president.

Trump wrote on social media that he "doesn't care" when that happens.

"I don't care when the Senate passes the House Bill, whether tonight, or at some other time in the near future," he said.

"I just don't want Republicans to take their eyes off all of the Victories that we've had."

Once the bill hits his desk, it will be up to Trump to actually sign it into law.

Despite previously calling the whole issue a "Democratic hoax", the president has said that he would sign the measure if it passed both houses of Congress.

President Donald Trump speaks as he meets Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington.

When will the Epstein files be released?

Once Trump signs the act into law, the US Justice Department will have just 30 days to release all of the Epstein files.

Some sensitive documents and details may be withheld or redacted, including:

personal information about victims
explicit depictions of child abuse
anything that could jeopardise ongoing federal investigations
depictions of death or injury
information that has been classified to protect national security

Once the files have been released, the Justice Department will have 15 days to provide Congress with a full list of what has been released and what has been withheld.

It will also be required to provide a report on any redactions and a full list of government officials and "politically exposed persons" named in the files.

How would the material be released?

It's unclear at this stage how the Epstein files will be released.

Some documents that have already been made public by the administration have been released via the House Oversight Committee.

Additional files may be handed over to the Committee to release, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

Who voted against the Epstein files being released?

All but one member of the US House of Representatives voted in favour of releasing the Epstein files.

The one holdout was Congressman Clay Higgins, who voted against passing the bill.

"I have been a principled 'NO' on this bill from the beginning," Higgins said in a post on X after the vote.

"What was wrong with the bill three months ago is still wrong today.

"It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America."

Higgins voiced concern with the legislative language of the bill and claimed that if enacted in its current form, it could reveal and injure "thousands of innocent people".

"This type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files, released to a rabid media, will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt," he said.

The congressman said he would change his vote if the Senate amended the bill to "properly address privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated".

What are the Epstein files?

The so-called Epstein files are a collection of documents from multiple investigations into disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

One case is from 2008 and involved a 14-year-old girl.

Her parents alleged that Epstein had molested her at his Palm Beach home and photos of girls were later found in the home.

Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor and was registered as a sex offender, but a plea deal allowed him to escape a jail sentence.

Then in 2019, Epstein was charged with running a network of underage girls for sex.

He was arrested but died by suicide in prison before going to trial.

Over the years, the US Justice Department collected countless documents and other pieces of evidence pertaining to these and other investigations into Epstein, including victim interview transcripts, items taken in raids, and photographs.

Until now, most of these documents have been kept from the public.

Some have been put into the public domain in the years since Epstein's death, either through official releases or leaks.

Several of the released documents have mentioned Trump, including one email released this month in which Epstein wrote "I know how dirty Donald is".

Trump has repeatedly downplayed his connection to Epstein.