ISA continues tirade against Govt super bills

Industry Super Australia (ISA) is once again pointing the finger at the Federal Government’s superannuation reforms, this time confirming its view that they contain significant flaws and so not ensure consistent outcomes across MySuper and Choice products.

ISA said the proposed reforms also failed to fix disclosure gaps exploited by the retail super sector and made mention of the lack of support for the bills within the Senate.

Money Management reported last month on ISA’s accusation of the Government pursuing an ‘ideological vendetta’ against industry funds and unions and has continued its accusations, saying the Government’s resistance to strengthening its own bill with better outcomes was “inexplicable.”

“The government seems unwilling to require the same Member Outcomes test and the same disclosure outcomes and transparency measures,” said ISA chief executive, David Whiteley.

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“The Senate recognised many of the Government’s super proposols were not even handed and advantaged retail and bank-owned super funds.”

Whiteley said the Government has left super fund members in the dark over fees, costs, underperformance and dividends.

“The withdrawal of these Bills presents the Government with an opportunity to put political partisanship aside and work with the entire superannuation sector to develop an even-handed approach to regulation,” he said.

ISA outlined its belief that the Government had failed to:

• Require comprehensive disclosure of underlying assets or retail super funds
• Comprehensively address issues around unpaid super
• Implement simplified ‘choice’ product disclosure legislated in 2013
• Extend legislative ‘outcomes’ test to ‘choice’ super products
• Address obscured practices around fee disclosure and investment expenses, and;
• Require full disclosure of bank super fund dividends derived from fees paid out of super fund assets.