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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to the Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby. Welcome aboard, everybody. One of the subjects really close to my heart is financial literacy. And it's something I think that permeates basically right across media and across this show. And I'm sure all listeners are familiar with the concept at least. But what does it really mean in practice and what's going on?
It's something I think that every listener should tune into because there's major issues ahead of you and people around you in relation to this financial literacy we are not exactly leading the world we used to on this and there's a lot of subjects and a lot of issues that need to be improved
My guest today, Paul Clitheroe, chair of the Invest Smart Group, is probably the person in Australia best known in relation to financial literacy. And he's also the chair of EXTRA, the Financial Literacy Foundation, of which I am, by the way, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a director of the same organisation. How are you, Paul? I'm really good. Thanks, James.
Great to have you on board.
Chapter 2: What is financial literacy and why is it important?
I mean, as I say, you are the person most associated with financial literacy because you were the founder, really, of this whole group. But most people are still probably a little bit unsure exactly what it is and why it matters. Tell us, what is financial literacy, first of all, and why it matters to our listeners who are mostly active investors?
Ah, see, here we're probably speaking to the converted, I think, James.
But look, I think we'd all agree that the reason it matters critically and it matters across 26 million Australians, putting aside really young little bubbers, but it's fair even for financially literate listeners like yours, James, that, look, I think the big deal for me is that a modern economy, it allows you to do something humans haven't been able to do for some 7,000 years of documented history.
Since Bank Card popped along in about 1980, For the first time in history, the everyday consumers, all of us, can spend money that we simply don't have. We can spend money that we've yet to earn, and we're spending money that we hope to earn in the future. Now, this really is new for humans. In my uni days, it was probably the same for you, James, pretty straightforward.
Now, different to you, James, I was in uni in the mid-1970s. If I didn't get to the bank by 3 o'clock on Friday, they shut at 3 o'clock, if I didn't get to the bank by 3 o'clock on Friday and I didn't get out my $20 spending money, I didn't go out on the weekend, and I went to the pub on Saturday night, which is pretty common, and I ran out of money, I went home.
And so the system actually taught me financial literacy. There was literally, if I didn't work in my bar job or come and dad used to help out with my uni college fees, $24 a week. But basically, if I didn't have that money, well, I was going to get thrown out of college. I wasn't going to eat and I wasn't going to have a beer. So it's complicated, James.
And so it does matter now more than ever because in the past, the system did not allow you to get into dreadful trouble with money. The truth is, James, the system now allows you to get in as much trouble as you like. So you need to know the rules.
And very quickly, if you wish, at a very young age also, as you say, I mean, that's a really good example. My own kids tell me, I mean, I couldn't believe it. My son was telling me in bars and everything. many bars late of recent decades. But he says that his peers, his age group, they take out credit cards or money cards, not even looking at what they're spending.
Obviously, you can just imagine the scene at one o'clock in the morning. And that's a that's kind of good example of on the street. And then maybe more generally, it's so easy to be lured, if you like, or seduced into financial arrangements that could be considerably more complex than that.
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Chapter 3: How has Australia’s financial literacy changed over the years?
They're expected to do environmental stuff and money stuff. Look, There's all sorts of issues going on with online internet bullying. There's a whole world out there. Teachers are really under pressure. And there's also about 320,000 primary and secondary school teachers.
So what's happening at the moment is that, sure, we've got wonderful programs like Extras Talk Money, which some 540,000 kids have had a chance to be impacted by the sensible ideas in there. But in the classroom... We've really got some schools, some principals have really said, this is, we need to be doing this.
And we see it's embedded in the curriculum, but they're actively saying to their teachers, look, it is, we need to be teaching this stuff in maths. And so they're going to Extra for resources. They're going to ASIC's wonderful money website for resources. So there's stacks of resources out there for teachers. But the honest answer is it's patchy, James. And it's not as simple as we may think.
Though 320,000 teachers some years ago, Julia Gillard gave a special grant of $10 million to train teachers. It costs around about $1,000 for a two-day program. So with your $10 million, you've actively trained 1,000 teachers, 319,000 to go.
Yeah, that's right. Okay, so this is the sort of scale of the challenge ahead in the schools. The thing I would be concerned about in schools is it seems to me, and maybe this never will change, but we could work on changing it,
Kids who are already good at math or at accountancy or at business or whatever, or economics, obviously, in a way they will, by osmosis nearly, they will pick up financial literacy. So is the concern really for the kids who aren't that way? Is that who you're targeting?
No, kids who want to have natural home and natural – look, some kids love football, some kids – money is clearly of more interest than some kids to other – research shows that very clearly. But the point here is it's one of the reasons why people say, but in a humanities subject like English, how is a teacher doing something about money in English?
Well, a really interesting problem for a family who's not particularly financially literate, and there's plenty around, okay? One of the reasons we're doing financial literacy in English, for example, is in English people You can do spelling words like spell compound interest. You can put money into... So what we've got here is not just a numeracy skill, James.
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Chapter 4: What does 'swim between the flags' mean in money management?
What we've got here for many Australians, and I think most of the listeners today are going, what's he banging on about? Let's call the language of money Mandarin for a moment, if you like. We all speak this money language called Mandarin. It is as difficult as Mandarin. It's a very sophisticated language. It's not easy to learn. And the trouble is, if you are fluent in my money Mandarin,
When people are speaking to you in money Mandarin, you understand it. That's right. But for other people, seriously, when you're at a barbecue and you say, what do you think about the government's change of the negative hearing? Yeah. It's embarrassing not to know, right?
That's right. That's right. Yeah. And you forget that, Paul, don't you? You forget that the other people don't speak the language. They don't speak money Mandarin.
Very good point. So we want to give the language skills of money. It's all very good and well to say compound interest, but what's it mean? So we need to help teachers with how do we not only in math, it's not just a numeracy skill, it is a life skill. And so that's why actually it is embedded across the curriculum in various subject areas because our educators aren't silly.
They know this is the case, that it is a whole-of-life skill. And if you don't get the language going, in a sense, the math's not a lot of use to you.
Yes, very good point. So it's wider, folks. I might even have outlined that at the start. This idea that financial literacy is all about finance, as Paul's saying, it's actually broader. And one of the things that is happening inside finance
inferior at the moment is the use of the word financial capability more often because it turns out just because you're numerous doesn't mean you're smart money okay we'll be back in a moment because i want to bring up with paul what's going on in australia or to be more precise what's not going on and it is emerging really as an issue for us
Hello, welcome back to the Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby, and today I'm talking to Paul Clitheroe, who I'm sure you know, of course, from his years on Channel 9 and many shows, The Money Magazine, Invest Smart, where he's chair, and financial literacy is a mutual interest of ours.
And Paul, you mentioned at the start of the show how you had been involved in Financial Literacy Foundation Extra from its early days, and it got off to a flying start. But in recent surveys... Australia, OECD surveys, Australia has kind of slid down the table in terms of financial literacy and the performance of younger Australians in particular is the weakest part there.
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Chapter 5: How is financial literacy integrated into the Australian school system?
Car financing. Oh, we can do financing for you. Oh, thank you very much. There's always this sort of, what are the big issues of today?
This is the reason, in a sense, why some say to me, oh, we've seen longitudinal surveys. indicating we're going backwards with financial literacy. We're not going backwards with financial literacy. Australians are getting better every year. But as we get better, the system becomes harder. It becomes more and more complex. The scams become more sophisticated.
Superannuation is, crikey, Charlie, look, I'm meant to be a sunny expert. Believe you me, James, I've got a superannuation advisor. It's become a specialist skill. You can't do super as a generalist anymore, and I'm a generalist. So really, we've got all sorts of stuff going on. But
I keep running back to the one thing that hasn't changed is what I like on my tombstone is I would really like it that rather than people saying to me as I'm wandering around a train or a bus or whatever, and people go, I used to watch that money show. They read Money Magazine. They say, can I have a hot tip? And I generally tell them not to stand in a canoe, but it would be nice to your mother.
But what I'd really love is I really love it when people say, you know what? I saw that money show of yours 30-odd years ago, and you said put $20 a week into your mortgage. I thought that was a stupid small amount of money, but I did and paid my mortgage off seven years early. Now, that for me is genuine financial literacy. It's just people saying to me, you know what?
Look, I've done a bit of a rough budget. I've got a bit of an idea if I'm spending more than I earn. I love it when people say the fundamental of financial literacy, James, is to spend less than you earn. I've got people who talk to me with a lot of money and they're going out backwards. I've known many Australians who've had very normal jobs and they have retired extremely comfortably.
What's the difference? It's not what they've earned. It's they've spent less than they've earned. And that to me, gee, James, if all we got out of financial literacy was people saying, I don't really need a hot tip because that's sure to be a crook or a scam. If someone's telling you it's really easy, it's got to be too good to be true, right? I mean, it's just not the truth about money.
The problem is that none of this stuff is easy. It's difficult. The system's difficult. If we try to understand all of it, James, it's like you or I try to understand when I lift the bonnet of my car these days, I can't even work out where the motor is. It's complicated.
So basically what I really need is I need the car equivalent of getting your car serviced, putting the right fuel in it and generally looking after it. With money, I simply want people to say I've got a sense of safety. I understand if someone rings me. I don't care who they say they are.
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Chapter 6: What challenges do teachers face in teaching financial literacy?
But if you look at a couple of extra phone calls to protect a 10% deposit, that's one of the cheapest investments she's made in her life. It's that sort of stuff, James. And it's not the sort of stuff that comes obviously. And many of the people who've been ripped off on sending their deposit to an intercepted email or the wrong solicitor's account number, these aren't dumb people, James.
They're just not used to the idea of how sophisticated fraud has become. So you kind of need this, I've got to spend less than I earn and invest the rest. Then you work out just fine over the decades. If someone offers you an investment miracle, it's certain to be a rip-off.
But unfortunately, in this day and age, and it makes me sad to say this, James, you can't really trust anyone with your money unless you're certain it's a verified source. And I'm sad to say that.
Yes, and it's so important. And one of the most amazing things I found out in financial literacy was that you and I have a sense of it all, not just that we learned how the ropes, but through life experience. I'll give you an example. They did a survey in the UK where they found that many people under 15 didn't trust banks.
But when they investigated, what they discovered was they didn't really know what banks were. They'd never been in a bank. You and I think of a bank as a big, solid building with big, solid doors. And there was a security in that. But this new generation find that they... These are almost notions to them. So if they're only notions, then obviously a completely different frame of reference.
And I think that's probably what financial literacy has to do all the time. It has to constantly update.
You've got to make money real for the young people. I mean, we've got a wonderful one in one of the focus groups for the Financial Literacy Board many years ago. In a focus group, a five-year-old said to us, oh, money, money's easy. If you want to get money, just buy stuff. And the room stopped. And a charming young kid in a very fun, safe environment. Everyone was having a bit of a chuckle.
We were just obviously, we're not teachers. We were just sitting listening. And the teacher handling the session beautifully said, so how do you get money buying stuff? And the little five-year-old said, well, I'm not silly. I go out with mummy and daddy and we go to the supermarket and we get a trolley of stuff. And when we get to the counter to get all our stuff, they give us money.
In other words, what mum and dad have done is quite sensibly they need cash to buy fish next door or something, whatever it might be, or get their shoes done. So mum and dad have said, thanks for all the groceries. Could we have $100 with that? Now, I'm laughing my head off about this, but there's a deep truth here.
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