Superannuation funds shower us with heart-warming ads. Whether it’s at the footy, on the TV or over the radio, smiling adults and catchy jingles sell the promise of financial security.

However, what really matters when choosing a super fund? Cash.

Last week, IOOF unveiled plans to become one of the country’s largest funds after it acquires NAB’s MLC Wealth. IOOF chief executive Renato Mota said “size matters” and predicted there would be only a handful of mega-funds in the future, with the largest amassing $500 billion in assets.

The reason for this trend? “As funds get bigger, they can make prices lower...

Race 1: 1:25PM TAB HANDICAP (1550 METRES)

2. Cadenabbia is very well bred and should handle a soft track on his breeding and trials prior to a
solid debut second at Kensington two weeks ago. Had his chance there but held the rest easily and
can only be improved. He’s the horse with the upside and chance to go one better.
Dangers: 10. Wild Irish was in the market in the same race at her first run this time in and
disappointed but she’s better than that. Narrowly beaten here back in May and placed on a soft 7 in
June so handles give in the ground. Likely improver. 5. Canadian Spice has had a few shots at
breaking through and led for the first time in her career when run down late by Reaching at
Newcastle last week. Gate one means she should be handy and has to be included again. 4...

The inquiry into Victoria’s COVID-19 quarantine hotels scandal has heard poor cleaning efforts and lack of infection-control training increased the risk of the virus escaping into the community.

But the leader of the Health Department team sent in to control the most damaging outbreak at Rydges on Swanston in May would not agree on Tuesday that poor conditions and practices he found there made wider transmission “inevitable”.

Evidence presented to the inquiry also indicated that use of private security firms to guard returned travellers in the isolation hotels made it more difficult to contain the clusters.

The inquiry was shown text messages from the Victorian president of the Au...

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said the state was too “swamped” by the first wave of the pandemic to consider contact-tracing technology it is now embracing to help contain further outbreaks.

Mr Andrews confirmed reports in The Age that Silicon Valley tech giant Salesforce was providing a new data management system to bring Victoria’s contact-tracing methods into the digital age.

The Premier also confirmed that Victoria rejected an approach by Salesforce early in the pandemic.

“Sometimes, when you are swamped, it is not a great time to move to a new IT platform,” Mr Andrews said.

A woman has told a Sydney court she thought she was just meeting a man for coffee after connecting on a dating app, when he took her to his apartment and sexually assaulted her.

French father-of-two David Gabrieli presented himself as an “outdoorsy” doctor on the dating app and website RSVP, and had texted and called the woman a few times before they arranged to meet in August of 2017, she told the court.

Mr Gabrieli is accused of a string of sexual offences relating to four women he met via the dating apps RSVP and Bumble between August 2017 and January 2018.

He has pleaded not guilty in the NSW District Court to 13 counts of indecent assault, five counts of sexual ...

The Aidan O’Brien-trained Anthony Van Dyck is the first ever Epsom Derby winner to be entered for the Melbourne Cup – and he heads the weights for not just Australia’s greatest race but the other leg of the big spring double, the Caulfield Cup.

In both races he has been given 58.5 kilos, while last year’s Melbourne Cup winner Vow And Declare has gone up five kilos and will have to shoulder 57 if he is to repeat his 2019 Flemington win.

There is a full house of Derby winners from Australia this year including one of the most exciting gallopers to have been prepared for a spring campaign in many years, the Danny O’Brien-trained Russian Camelot, a northern hemisphere three-year-old, who has raced his entire career in Australia.

As Victorians, we need to stay positive and optimistic about the future, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t question some of the decisions that are being made to manage the coronavirus pandemic.

Too many of the decisions being made by city-based politicians and bureaucrats fail to acknowledge the fundamental differences between life in metropolitan areas and regional communities.

Coming off years of drought and summer bushfires, we are hurting too many people unnecessarily in regional Victoria with some of the restrictions described in the Premier’s latest road map.

Every job is worth fighting for. Every job is worth saving...

Salvaldor Dali would have been just as proud of his design for the Chupa Chups wrapping paper as he would be to see The Persistence of Memory hanging at MoMA, according to ad man Adam Ferrier.

In 1969 the Spanish surrealist was having coffee with a friend, Chupa Chups founder Enric Bernat, who a decade earlier had created the Catalan lollipop but had struggled to make it popular.

Reportedly, Bernat complained to the painter that his ad agency was yet to come up with compelling branding. So Dali immediately set to work, scribbling away at the cafe table on pages of a discarded newspaper, and within an hour had the daisy logo in its preliminary form. He also suggested that the logo be placed on top, rather than the side, so it could always be seen.