“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” ~ Dune (1965) Kara (2026) Frank Herbert
Half of us are terrified of retirement. Here’s why you might be OK
Last year I wrote a column taking a long hard look at a pattern I kept seeing in the superannuation industry: report after report measuring how anxious Australians feel about retirement, with very little action to show for it.
PR dressed up as progress, I called it, and my readers agreed loudly. We don’t need more reports, we need more action to help members navigate their retirement.
So when Colonial First State’s annual Rethinking Retirement report landed on my desk this week, I’ll admit I picked it up with a slightly raised eyebrow. But then I read it properly. And then I read it again. Because CFS has actually done a lot of work on its retirement and advice propositions this year, not just commissioned another survey.
And there was a finding buried in that report truly worth sharing and talking about today. It could be the most important thing I’ve read about retirement all year.
It concerns the amount of worry people are expending on retirement, possibly unnecessarily, and how such worry has surprisingly little to do with the money they have as they approach retirement but more to do with how proactive they are in understanding their real position.
According to the CFS report, almost half of all Australians (49 per cent) don’t feel prepared for retirement. Among that group, more than half (56 per cent) are actively worried about it.
We don’t need an actual problem to feel real anxiety. We just need an unanswered question.
However, among Australians who do feel prepared, such worry falls to just 15 per cent. Same economy, same cost of living, same grocery bills. The difference? Whether they know where they stand.
Picture two people sitting next to each other on the train, both with about the same amount in super, both stretched by the same cost-of-living crisis. One is sleeping fine at night. The other is staring at the ceiling at 2am.
The gap between them isn’t the size of their super balance. It’s the fact that one has looked at their numbers and worked out what their retirement could be like.
That means understanding whether the age pension will kick in and when, how it sits alongside their super, what kind of fortnightly income that combination can really deliver, and whether they still need to work or actually have more choices than they had considered. Even a rough picture of that future is worth more than years of vague hoping that all will work out fine.
Many people in the industry would see this and call it an advice gap, a signal that Australians need to go and see a financial adviser. And for people in complex situations, that’s sometimes true.
But I’d push back hard on that as a catch-all answer. For most Australians, this isn’t about advice. It’s about information and understanding. And most super funds already have the calculators, retirement income estimators and member support on their website, often available completely free, that can paint you that exact picture. You don’t need to pay anyone anything to start understanding what your retirement could really look like.
And right now, only half of Australians have done that. Just one in 10 feel truly ready. Australians want to retire at 62, but most think 66 is the honest answer, and those four years in between are probably your best.
The long-haul trips, the young grandkids, the big days out that don’t cost you a week of recovery. Moreover, what people think they need to retire on comfortably has jumped $183,000 in a single year, crossing $1 million for the first time.
For many people approaching retirement now, that number lands like a sucker punch. But here’s what most Australians don’t realise: a couple with $500,000 in super can often generate a very similar amount of retirement income as a couple with $1 million, simply because the age pension fills the gap.
That’s precisely why understanding your numbers matters so much more than chasing someone else’s benchmark.
In Prime Time, I wrote about the way our brains naturally treat uncertainty as a threat. It’s something hardwired into us since our caveman days, when not knowing what was around the corner could genuinely get you killed.
We don’t need an actual problem to feel real anxiety. We just need an unanswered question. And “will I actually be OK in retirement?” is one of the biggest unanswered questions most Australians are carrying around every single day, often for years before they get anywhere near stopping work.
So here’s what I want you to do this week, and I mean actually do, not just think “yes I should do that” and move on.
Log into your super fund’s app or website and find its retirement calculator or income estimator. Almost every major fund has one now. Put in your current balance, your age, and what you think you’ll contribute between now and when you want to retire. Then look at what income that translates to each fortnight. That’s it – the first step.
It won’t give you a perfect answer, and it won’t replace a full financial plan, but it will give you something far more valuable than a vague sense of fear or dread. A number that shows you what your super and savings, combined with any age pension you might be eligible for, can actually generate as a regular income.
Once you have that number, you can start asking the right questions. Is it enough? If not, how far off am I? What would change if I contributed an extra $50 a week? What would change if I worked one extra year, contributed more and drew down less?
This can kickstart a process of alleviating your anxiety, and move you from “I don’t know” to “I know where I stand”. Those are two entirely different emotional places to be in, and you can get yourself from the first to the second in about 30 minutes this afternoon.
Women, as the data continues to show, carry this burden hardest. Nearly two in three women worry they won’t have enough to live on comfortably in retirement, compared with just under half of men.
Women are also more worried about outliving their savings and facing unexpected health or aged care costs down the track. If you’re a woman in your 50s reading this, please don’t let this slide past you. The actions you take in the next five years will shape the retirement you live for the 20 years after that.
The CFS research also found that the No. 1 reason Australians don’t engage with their super is that it feels too complicated. More than a third of disengaged members said exactly that. But I would push against that gently.
The complexity isn’t coming from you. If your fund hasn’t made it genuinely simple to understand what your balance means in real income terms, that’s a problem with your fund’s design of their retirement services and support, not a “you” problem. And it’s worth telling them so.
Because you don’t necessarily need a $5000 financial plan to start feeling better about retirement. What you need is a clear picture of where you stand and a realistic sense of where you’re heading.
Once you have that, you can decide whether the retirement guidance your super fund already offers is enough, or whether you need something more. You can also start making practical decisions about simplifying your finances, working out whether you’re contributing enough, and checking that your investment option still suits your situation in life.
Your super fund should be making all of this as easy as possible for you. The good ones already are.
Bec Wilson is author of the bestseller How to Have an Epic Retirement and the newly released Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife. She writes a weekly newsletter at epicretirement.net and hosts the Prime Time podcast.
- Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.
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Bec Wilson is the author of How To Have An Epic Retirement and writes a weekly newsletter for pre- and post-retirees at epicretirement.“One of the specialities is pork blood jelly,” Lee, 38, says as we take a seat near the window. “It’s an acquired taste, but it’s a bit messy.” I imagine it was one of those dishes he tucked into with gusto in the early days of his courtship with Cake, but not so much now. I’m up for anything, and so let him do the ordering.
He doesn’t drink, which is handy for a bloke who’s the CEO of a rehab centre. “I get these really bad red flushes whenever I drink and my nasal passages clog up,” he says. “I tell the boys at The Glen that I am allergic to booze and they all say, ‘Yeah, we wish we were too.’”
I’m yet to experience those awful flushes, and it’s a Thursday, so I order a Singha beer. He orders a lava lamp-looking thing in a tall glass that is described on the bill as lemon butterfly pea tea.
We settle in as Lee describes how he transitioned from a high-flying corporate gig in KPMG’s audit division to running a rehab centre for blackfellas on the NSW Central Coast. Pretty soon our entrees arrive, two lots of satay, chicken and beef – hard to bugger up and delicious.
The Glen was established 32 years ago by a local Indigenous man, Cyril Hennessey, who’d worked as a prison and parole officer. He became despondent with the criminal justice system, which didn’t deal with addiction, the root cause of the criminality for many of the people he was locking up.
Hennessey teamed up with a former school principal, Vincent Coyte, and in 1994 they set up The Glen, a rehab centre that mainly took in Indigenous men, many straight from jail. It is now regarded as one of the most effective rehab centres in the country, housing 40 clients at a time who stay for between three and nine months. In 2022, The Glen for Women opened nearby, with between 20 and 29 women in residence at any one time.
Satay beef and chicken at Khao Soi – hard to bugger up and delicious. Oscar Colman
In 2023, I interviewed Robert Tickner, the former minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the Hawke Government, who initiated the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Tickner told me that the only way to reduce Black deaths in custody is by having far fewer Indigenous people in jail. And yet, shamefully, the numbers are rising. “If we could roll out programs like The Glen all around the country it would be transformational,” Tickner said. “Utterly transformational.”
In 2007, Alex Lee graduated from UNSW with a commerce degree and landed a plum gig with KPMG. He diligently worked his way through the organisation and in 2014 he returned from a coveted year-long secondment in the London office. A big and lucrative career appeared to be laid out before him. He lived in an apartment not far from the Khao Soi, and after walking through the city after a long day in the office, this was the sort of place he’d find himself in, contemplating the meaning of his life.
His job was challenging and rewarding, and the pay was obscene for someone still in his 20s. But making rich people even richer just didn’t scratch his itch. After he returned from London he’d applied through Jawun, a charity that links Indigenous organisations to corporate Australia, to do some volunteer work at The Glen.
“I asked my boss if I could do the interview to get into The Glen,” he says. His manager said there was no need for an interview because no one else had applied – all the applications from KPMG staff had been for exotic locations in Arnhem Land or Cape York. And so he found himself volunteering two days a month for 12 months.
“My very first impression was that everyone was huge,” Lee says of his first day. Many of the clients had spent years behind bars, working out. The men at The Glen were some of the hardest cases from the NSW justice system.
“And yet everyone was so warm. There was this guy, Josh Toomey, who was the chair of the local land council. He just came up to me and gave me a big hug and said, ‘Where are ya from? Welcome to the Glen.’ Everyone was just welcoming and friendly … it was so different to corporate Australia. I just loved it.”
He would volunteer at The Glen, and then return to his job at KPMG. One day, his boss called him into his office. He was holding an envelope. It was the offer of a promotion to a managerial position at the firm. It was just the incentive he needed. He quit KPMG the next week.
Alex was born in Sydney in 1987, the year after his parents, Heidi and Wilbert, migrated from Hong Kong. He’s the middle child, with an older sister and younger brother. Wilbert worked in IT for insurance companies, and Heidi was a cook, who worked in various jobs in aged care and corrective services and volunteered for charities and church groups. They lived in Epping on Sydney’s north shore.
Lee (second from left) with clients from The Glen, being presented with a painting to celebrate his 10 years at the rehab centre.
It was a very stable and loving upbringing and they got along with everyone in the neighbourhood. But at Epping Boys High, Alex, “a small Asian kid” was ostracised and bullied. “I was the only one from my primary school to go to Epping Boys, and, being alone with no friends, I became the easy one to pick on,” he says. He’d retreat to the library, “with the other nerds”.
At around 14, he went through a period of depression. He was so quiet that some of the teachers thought he was mute. He was referred to the school counsellor. “She was wonderful,” he says. “When I look back, I was quite an angry kid.” The counsellor suggested it might be helpful if he became involved in community work.
“I used to do lots of walks around the bush and national parks,” he says. “It was where I found quiet and peace.” He’d pick up any rubbish as he walked. These were the days of Clean-Up Australia, and he registered to be the coordinator for his area. A horde of local elderly folk joined him. “Like my counsellor said, I’d connect with positive people.” Towards the end of high school, he had a big crew and roped in friends. His confidence blossomed. “And that was the start of my volunteering,” he says.
“[My mentor] used to get me to stand on the opposite side of the freeway and shout at him to help me project my voice.”
He was also a very good student and, in his later years at high school, being bright brought him some kudos. At his non-selective state school he graduated with an ATAR of 98.65. He could have done anything. He chose commerce, and at university his weekends were filled with volunteering. He’d help out with the Australian League of Immigration Volunteers, organising camps and outings for migrant kids.
“It really helped with my confidence,” he says. “I had to step up and be a leader. I had this great mentor, and he knew I was very shy. He used to get me to stand on the opposite side of the freeway and shout at him to help me project my voice.”
The mains arrive and it’s comfort food on steroids. It’s a fusion of Thai and Japanese, two big servings of chicken katsu floating on a rich and layered Thai coconut sauce. It’s like valium in a bowl. For me, it demands another Singha. Lee is still sipping his lava lamp.
Lee and his fiancee Cake.
He tells me he’d grown up seeing the work his mum did, volunteering at the local church and community centres and cooking for homeless people. “When I started volunteering she was always making sandwiches for whichever group I was with,” he says.
After he quit KPMG, he moved to Thailand for a year to volunteer with a children’s charity. “Phuket was still recovering from the tsunami, and there was a generation of kids who didn’t have parents,” he says. The charity ran education programs in the orphanages and boarding schools. “I sold all my shares and liquidated all my assets to chase my dreams … but I did have to call on Dad a few times.”
While in Thailand, he kept in contact with the CEO of The Glen, Joe Coyte (the son of one of the founders). On trips home, he would travel up to the Central Coast to visit the centre. In 2015, Coyte called, saying he had funding to hire a development manager. “I asked what we were developing, and he said I could develop anything I wanted,” he says. This vaguest of job descriptions lured him home.
“I love the culture of The Glen,” Lee says. “It’s direct, it’s honest, and there’s no dancing around.” The board is Indigenous and they all have skin in the game, having witnessed the toll of addiction on kids and cousins. Everyone is moving in the same direction, trying to help the clients.
“And Joe is amazing, everything he does is for the purpose of good,” says Lee. “Me and him, on paper, are so opposite. He’s a country bloke who grew up in Tamworth, and I’m a city boy, but we balance each other out. Joe is good as the front man, and anything that required attention to detail – data, finance, writing grant applications, report writing, compliance, IT … which I enjoy – that was my job.”
In 2023, Coyte stepped back and became the executive director, and Lee moved into the CEO role. “I think I’m going to be here for a while,” he says. “Just the other day I saw a woman come in and she was so frightened, having spent the last few years in prison. She was embraced by everyone, the staff, the clients … she felt the love.
“There’s a lot of professionalism and hard work that goes into all the processes, but it’s the love that counts, and now this woman has so many opportunities ahead of her.”
But, as a numbers guy, there are many things that disturb him about the system. Firstly, The Glen can only accept one in five who apply – they try to help everyone into other centres, but many are turned away. And he knows the enormous cost benefits to the government and to society. It costs $436 a day to keep someone in prison, and $236 in rehab. And the clients who leave The Glen are far less likely to go back into jail, and most move into employment.
“I love the culture of The Glen – it’s direct, it’s honest, and there’s no dancing around”: Lee at Khao Soi restaurant in Sydney’s Haymarket. Oscar Colman
Lee has zero regrets about leaving his corporate life behind. His old friends from KPMG are living in multi-million dollar houses in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and north shore, and he’s still renting. “Wealth isn’t about money,” he says. “Working in this Indigenous culture there’s wealth in community, in spirit, in passion and purpose. To me, that’s what life is about.”
Our lunch had long been planned, but as it happens news of unsavoury shenanigans at his old firm had just become public. Maybe KPMG could put some money into The Glen, I suggest.
“Yeah” he says. “They’re not getting much good publicity at the moment. We could help.”
The bill
Khao Soi
Level 2, 73-75 Liverpool Street, Sydney
Chicken satay $10.90
Beef satay $11.90
2 x Khao Soi Chicken katsu $43.80
Lemon butterfly pea tea $7.90
2 x Singha beer $17
Total $91.50