How Safe Is Your Super?

We are being bombarded with the need to provide for our own savings to tide us over in retirement. The Howard Government is offering incentives, such as putting 1.5 times as much again as your own contributions to superannuation of up to $1000, to encourage people to save for their retirement. Believe me, the pension won't be around when I am ready to retire and I better be able to afford to live off my own money.

So I toodled off to the bank yesterday to take some money out and mentioned that I was just going to put it somewhere else that wouldn't allow me to touch it until I retired. The lady bank teller knew what I meant and countered with, "How much money do you need anyway? It's a big scare campaign. By the time you are 75 you are too old to go travelling around the world."
I disagreed on that point but thought that once you reach 80 you may be downplaying the need to go on a world trip. Her opinion was that if you live to 75 and all of your money is gone then your kids can look after you until you die. I mentioned that I would only have one kid to do that and that I was paying for him now and that discouraged me from putting money into superannuation. She said that she had four kids and was still paying for them and that none of them would be looking after her when she was old.

Anyway, toodled off to the superannuation company to deposit the money. On the deposit slip for my wife there was a section whereby you could change the address. I asked if any ID was required to do this, as there didn't appear to be, and the lady said not and that I should just fill it in.

So, my question is, how safe is your super? You could put it in all of your life and then somebody could change the delivery address and then probably forge your signature to change the entitlements to benefit themselves, and there are very few, if any, checks in place. For something so important I would have expected a few more safeguards than that. Or perhaps they aren't worried about your money.