I set out for Thursday on Monday. I got there Tuesday and left on Wednesday to be home by Thursday.

Far North Australia is the place to go if you want to mess with time and space. The further north you go the more there is of both; time because everything slows down and space because little of the physical landscape has been crowded by human intervention.

Two weeks ago I spent a day in a shed with people from ART (Australian Retirement Trust was formed by the merger of QSuper and Sunsuper), on a campaign for supporting the local members of the fund.

ART visit the island to provide personal information to the local members about their superannuation entitlements and answering their questions about all things retirement. Many of the inquiries come from the local Torres Strait community. As you can imagine, this group come with a range of issues that defy the standards that we take for granted in our normal working lives. In just a day, I managed to get a sense of what this means for them.

The first thing is access to information, in a remote area where power and therefore electronic and digitised information is not taken for granted. Bringing the information to the area, while reliable, requires a lot of energy. Planes get smaller, eventually transition to boats, then to minibuses. Rental vehicles are second or third hand and manual. Eventually walking is the intuitive default.

Despite the humidity, I slept well in my humble accommodation, thanks to a fan, an open window, and my practiced purpose.

The day started with a sunrise at a World War 2 gunnery. Panoramic views of the surrounding islands and potential options for spectacular swims. Halfway through my coffee being poured, all power on the island went out. Thankfully, a short walk located a mobile coffee stand, complete with a generator. I drank my first complete coffee reviewing a local war memorial with a stunning statue of an Indigenous soldier.

The power outage continued until just before 10am. No power, no air conditioning, so visitors to the shed were few (sweaty) and far between. Without visitors the QMV giveaways sat untouched. I then met George*, a survivor of the stolen generation, a geologist, a chemist, an entrepreneur, and spouse of the local school principal. After much discussion and time slipping away, we delivered 80% of the merchandise to the school to be handed to the kids pending completion of their NAPLAN testing.

Back at the shed I served coffee and sandwiches and chatted with various suppliers and members. I chatted with Eddie, a key connection between ART and various Indigenous groups. He introduced me to Don, who has spent most of his life working around the islands with fisheries and wildlife. Don and Eddie were close friends when in their 20's in Brisbane they were part of a sponsored group to increase the number of indigenous locals to go through university. They had not seen each other since Uni. Eddie completed his qualifications. After a year of an arts degree and on holidays back home, Don took a role at fisheries and wildlife ("cause they gave me a boat") and a little regretfully, never returned to Uni.

I spent some of my travel-time contemplating the purpose of my trip; this is proposed to be an annual campaign for ART. When this event was last held in 2019 pre-COVID, QMV provided a lot of merchandise mostly for the kids of the members. It was such a hit, ART invited us to participate and attend again this year. But what is the purpose of the trip? Hardly philanthropic.

Put simply, I was going to support ART's engagement and listen to a remote community of members and much less about immediate outcomes (or ROI).

I was immediately tested on this at a pub dinner with 3 local secondary school teachers who generously shared their table with me. As members of ART themselves they understood ART’s campaign and the complimentary QMV merchandise. They had no appreciation of the work that QMV does for ART. (They relaxed after I told them that none of my immediate or extended family understand what I do for a living). I was tested again when I met up with the ART team, at the same pub. They got it immediately and appreciated the humility.

In the end my message was that QMV have worked closely with QSuper and now ART over the years and that our work supports them providing the best outcomes for their members. We have worked together to achieve common goals and it feels comfortable for us to support them with this service for this community in a small way.

My attendance provided QMV with the opportunity to hear the voice of this community; a remote, mostly Torres Strait Islander, under-serviced, less informed group in our industry. And anything that we can do to connect with this group of people to hear how they understand our industry and what they want from it is good for QMV's own ruminations.

The immediate return for us is the chance that one of the hand reels we gave out will provide dinner for one family on the island. If I were to get ambitious, we will get something uniquely insightful that inspires development of a QMV product that leads to better outcomes for remote customers of our industry.

Regardless, it is an inspiring, dramatically different place to visit and the perfect backdrop for meeting the broader group of people that are running the newly merged fund and have the chance to meet the locals of the area that are members.

Regards 

Michael Quinn – Executive Director 

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QMV provides trusted advisory, consulting and technology to Australia’s leading superannuation, insurance, banking and wealth management organisations. For further information please telephone our office p +61 3 9620 0707 or submit an online form.

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