On 19 August 2026, the Australian Government published a fact sheet regarding further reforms to strengthen consumer protections and building the resilience of the Australian superannuation and financial system.
The Government’s Protecting Consumers in the Superannuation System measure, builds on the reforms announced in the 2026-27 Budget. The reforms span six pillars:
- For APRA-regulated funds, the Government will legislate caps on advice fee deductions, increase maximum civil penalties for trustee breaches from 2,400 to 50,000 penalty units, empower APRA to set risk-based capital requirements for higher-risk investment options, and give ASIC the power to direct trustees to remediate when an investment option fails.
- For self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs), the Australian Taxation Office will gain powers to block rollovers to new SMSFs under investigation, mandatory trustee education will be introduced, and SMSFs will be required to hold uniquely identifiable bank accounts and maintain written investment strategies. The SMSF supervisory levy will rise from $259 to $295.
- On lead generation, the reforms ban unlicensed real-time communication about superannuation, strengthen anti-hawking protections, introduce civil penalty provisions, and require licensees to exercise due diligence over lead generation arrangements.
- The package also enhances managed investment scheme governance, introduces a New Class of Adviser regime, and makes targeted reforms to the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR), including limiting CSLR payments to actual losses for post-June 2027 applications.