The Federal Government is considering important changes to superannuation law that would stop men who use family and domestic violence from inheriting the superannuation of the women they have abused. AAWAA has just lodged a submission to Treasury’s consultation ‘Preventing perpetrators from accessing victims’ super death benefits’, setting out how this reform can and should work in practice.
What is the consultation about?
When a woman dies, her superannuation does not automatically become part of her estate. Instead, the trustee of her super fund must decide who receives her ‘death benefit’, usually within a strict set of legal rules. Those rules prioritise dependants (spouses, children, financial dependants, people in interdependency relationships) and the legal personal representative of her estate.
In theory, this is meant to protect those who relied on her financially. In practice, it can mean that an abusive male partner, adult son or other male family or household member is legally first in line for her super, even where there is clear evidence of his violence and coercive control. Trustees may also be bound to follow a binding death‑benefit nomination that names the very man who has controlled and harmed her.
The consultation paper proposes three main types of reform to address this:
- a statutory ‘forfeiture‑like’ rule that would automatically exclude a person who has unlawfully killed the member
- a model (Option 1) giving trustees broader discretion to set aside abusive beneficiaries and override binding nominations
- more restrictive models (Options 2 and 3) that rely on prescribed court findings or push disputes into the courts.
Our starting point: superannuation and male violence
AAWAA’s submission starts from a simple proposition: superannuation is part of women’s economic safety after a lifetime of lower earnings, unpaid care and interrupted employment. When a male who has been violent and controlling towards a woman is able to inherit her super, the system is rewarding him from her retirement savings.
The legal framework for death benefits is formally gender‑neutral and applies to all perpetrators of family and domestic violence. In reality, the problem this consultation is trying to address overwhelmingly involves men using such violence against women, in intimate, family and household relationships. Our submission focuses squarely on that reality.
A necessary floor: a clear forfeiture‑like rule
We support Treasury’s proposal for a statutory forfeiture‑like rule as a minimum reform. At present, the common‑law forfeiture rule can prevent a man who has unlawfully killed a woman from benefiting from that killing, but its application is uncertain and usually requires separate court proceedings.
We argue that super law should be amended so that where a court has convicted a man of murder, manslaughter or prescribed serious offences in a family and domestic violence context that caused or contributed to a woman’s death, he is automatically ineligible to receive her superannuation death benefit, regardless of any nomination or governing rule. This is the bare minimum needed to ensure a man is not financially rewarded from a woman’s super as a result of his own unlawful killing or serious violence.
At the same time, we emphasise that this reform will only ever assist in the subset of cases where there is a relevant conviction. It does nothing for the many women who have experienced years of serious violence and coercive control without a conviction being recordedf
The core reform: strengthened trustee discretion
The core of our submission is support for a strengthened version of Treasury’s Option 1 – broad trustee discretion. Under this model, trustees would have explicit power to:
- set aside a person as an eligible beneficiary
- set aside a binding death‑benefit nomination, and
- depart from prescriptive governing rules
where they believe on a fair and reasonable basis that the beneficiary has been a perpetrator of violence against the deceased woman.
We argue that any legislative test must recognise family and domestic violence as patterns of male behaviour, not isolated incidents. The definition guiding trustees should explicitly include coercive control, economic abuse, psychological abuse and other forms of ongoing domination that strip a woman of practical freedom, including around financial decisions and nominations.
On evidence, we urge Treasury to give trustees a broad but structured evidentiary base. Relevant material should include court outcomes, police information, protection orders, evidence from family and friends, information from domestic violence services, medical and counselling records (with consent), community legal centre advice, financial counsellor input, and informal documentation such as texts and emails. Trustees should assess this material cumulatively, looking for consistent patterns and corroboration across multiple sources, rather than acting on untested assertion alone. The absence of court findings must not be treated as proof that no violence has occurred.
Where a trustee is satisfied on the available evidence that a man has been violent towards the deceased woman, we say there should be a clear presumption against him receiving any share of her superannuation death benefit. Allowing reduced but still significant payments to perpetrators would sit uneasily with the stated objectives of fairness and safety.
Why we oppose Options 2 and 3 as primary models
Option 2 would only allow trustees to act when there is a prescribed court finding that a beneficiary has perpetrated family and domestic violence. We oppose this as a primary mechanism, because it would fail precisely the women who most need protection. Most men who use violence and coercive control against women will never face criminal conviction or have their behaviour accurately captured in civil orders or judgments. Reliance on ‘relevant court findings’ would simply write those cases out of protection.
Option 3 would allow trustees to pay disputed death benefits into the estate or into court. We do not support this as a default pathway. Litigation is expensive, slow and often retraumatising for families who have already experienced male violence and grief. Court processes can erode the super balance that is supposed to support a deceased woman’s children or other dependants, and can advantage violent men with greater access to resources.
However, recognising political realities, our submission sets conditions in case government proceeds with these options despite our objections. If Option 2 is adopted, it should only ever operate as a supplementary trigger that adds to trustees’ powers under Option 1, not as a gatekeeper. If Option 3 is retained, it must be framed as a last resort for genuinely complex disputes, with strong safeguards on costs, clear court pathways, and directions to prioritise the interests of the deceased woman’s dependants and to minimise delay and trauma.
Our preferred package
In summary, AAWAA urges Treasury and Government to:
- adopt a statutory forfeiture‑like rule that automatically excludes men convicted of unlawful killing and specified serious violence from receiving women’s super death benefits
- make strengthened trustee discretion under Option 1 the core reform, with explicit recognition of coercive control and economic, psychological abuse, and a broad, cumulative evidentiary base
- treat Options 2 and 3, if used at all, as strictly supplementary and tightly confined.
We also call for explicit recognition of coercive control in superannuation law, systematic data collection on death‑benefit decisions in male violence cases against women, and structured involvement of independent women’s organisations in designing trustee guidance, training and monitoring. Finally, we recommend an independent review within five years of commencement to assess whether these changes are actually reducing instances of violent and abusive men inheriting women’s superannuation death benefits.
Read our full submission below.
