Every week another report lands or a super fund boss takes to the podium with the same message: Australians don’t feel financially secure about retirement and something needs to be done.

The question most people are really asking is simpler: what’s actually going to change, and how will all this talk help me?

Despite retirement being a time for kicking back and relaxing, many Australians still have money on their mind.Credit: Andrew Quilty

This week AMP added another report to the pile, launching the inaugural Retirement Confidence Pulse, a national barometer of how Australians feel about life after work.

The result was stark: a retirement confidence score of just 50 out of 100. Half of the 2000 Australians the index spoke to are seriously worried about how they will make ends meet once the pay cheques stop.

No surprises there. Ask anyone paying $9 for a loaf of bread, watching their electricity bill spike, or helping their adult kids scrape together a rental bond, and they’ll tell you no report is necessary.

Retirement already feels impossible to plan for. People know they aren’t confident. Funds know it too. And so does the government, which has been talking about reform for years while game-changing legislation still sits on the shelf.

If Australians are to get the affordable, timely advice they keep asking for, the long-awaited financial advice reforms must finally land.

The index simply put numbers around what most households already feel in their........

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