Mum-of-two reveals moment she discovered her bank accounts were draining

Rebecca Smith was blissfully happy with her two beautiful children - until one bank statement revealed something “frightening”.

Rebecca Smith was faced with a “confronting” situation when she discovered money had been drained from one of her accounts.

But she hadn’t fallen victim to a sinister scam.

Instead, she had simply taken parental leave to have her two children.

She took 13 months off with her first child and nine months for the second and accessed the government’s paid parental leave for 18 weeks.

But there was a glaring omission from the government scheme – she was paid no superannuation – and it wasn’t until she recently became a single mum that she realised the “frightening” situation she had landed in.

“One thing that did really surprise me is I went back through my super statement from the time I was on parental leave and it’s not just the gaps in my super from not having it paid, but it also decreased during my maternity leave as there were fees and premiums like the insurance premium taken out,” she told news.com.au.

“Those deductions were still happening and from the statement you can see it’s a lot of red and a lot of deductions, which is quite confronting.

“Not only did my super not increase but it decreased.”

Rebecca was shocked to uncover how badly her super was affected just from her having kids. Picture: Supplied

The 37-year-old is one of millions of Aussie mums caught up in the shocking super gap between men and women with a whopping 28 per cent difference.

Women retire with a median superannuation balance of $146,900, compared to men who walk away with $204,107 at retirement when aged 60 to 64 years, recent data from KPMG found.

The huge money gap between women and men when they retire is appalling – that’s why news.com.au believes the next Australian government should commit to paying superannuation while mums are on paid parental leave.

Despite the shocking super gap between men and women, neither major political party has committed to changing the policy.

Yet there is strong support among Australians for policy action.

Results of a recent Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia survey showed that more than 80 per cent of people agree that the government should try to boost the super balances of women who take time out of the workforce to have children.

Ms Smith, the mum of two boys aged five and seven, believes the change for superannuation to be paid while on government parental leave needs to happen now so that future mums don’t end up in her position – worrying about their financial future.

“From the government parental leave for two kids, it works out to about $15,000 I have missed out on in superannuation, and I haven’t calculated the chunk missed out from the employer – it’s frightening to think what it might all add up to,” she said.

“Superannuation is paid on so many other types of leave and it’s not for parental leave – it’s inequitable and it doesn’t seem fair.”

The Melbourne mum, who works in communications, added when she was having her children she was worried about the immediate impacts on her finances rather than the future.

“In my retirement, I want to be able to spend time enjoying it with my future grandchildren and I don’t want to be worrying about if I have enough money to retire, particularly on a sole income,” she said.

“It’s something I am watching very closely.”

She said the super gender gap is “disappointing”. Picture: Supplied

She describes the gender pay gap as “disheartening”.

“It’s disappointing that you can work and run just as hard and fast as someone else and not reach the same place, it’s disheartening, and it can be a real demotivator at the end of the day,” she said.

Disturbingly, for the pre-retirement years of 55-59, the gender gap for superannuation is 33 per cent difference in the amount of money and in the peak earning years of 45-49 the gender gap is a whopping 35 per cent, KPMG data found.

Lawyer, journalist and writer Georgie Dent.

Georgie Dent, executive director of The Parenthood, which is campaigning for politicians to introduce one year of paid parental leave, said mums in Australia end up paying a steep price in terms of their financial security when they take time out of paid work to raise children.

“We know mums in Australia take the lion’s share of parental leave after having a baby and they rarely return to work in the same way mums do overseas. Over the course of a mum’s life in Australia rather than accumulating retirement savings and wealth, she will accumulate financial assaults that result in too many women retiring in poverty or with very little super,” she told news.com.au.

“Super being paid on parental leave is a small change that will lessen one of the common financial assaults for mums.”

Expanded and equitable paid parental leave and radically more affordable childcare are the two most significant policy changes that would dramatically improve the financial security of women, she added.

Originally published as Mum-of-two reveals moment she discovered her bank accounts were draining