We aren’t anyone’s secretariat says AustralianSuper

9 July 2020by Mike Taylor
5 Comments

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has signalled it will not be allowing Link Market Services to bid for Pillar Administration.

The suspicions held about industry superannuation by Federal Government back-benchers have again been laid bare, with AustralianSuper finding itself forced to deny that it provided any other industry fund with “secretariat” service to help them respond to questions from a Parliamentary Committee.

The chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Tim Wilson has not only asked AustralianSuper about providing liquidity to hard-pressed funds such as REST and HostPlus, he has also asked AustralianSuper about other forms of support to other superannuation funds.

In a question on notice, Wilson stated: It has been brought to my attention that AustralianSuper is providing secretariat, or secretariat-like, services to assist other superannuation funds to respond and answer questions for the House of Representatives’ Standing Committee on Economics Inquiry into the big four banks and other financial institutions. Can you therefore advise:

On what basis AustralianSuper is providing this assistance to other superannuation funds?
The number of staff allocated to provide this support?
The estimated cost allocated to provide this support?
How this is consistent with the sole purpose test for AustralianSuper members?

The answer provided by AustralianSuper was succinct: “AustralianSuper is not providing secretariat, or secretariat-like, services to assist other superannuation funds”.

The superannuation fund, along with many other major funds which had received letters from Wilson as chair of the committee, also denied that it provided liquidity or loans to REST, Hostplus or any other superannuation funds.

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Comments

Permalink Submitted by Clutzy on Fri, 2020-07-10 08:15

Is this bloke for real? While most Australians including politicians of all persuasions have come together to get us through these tough times Wilson spend his tax payer funded days on this nonsense. I suggest he start doing some real work for his handsome and Covid-19 immune backbencher salary.

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Permalink Submitted by Mark on Fri, 2020-07-10 10:08

This is one of the greatest comments ever written. I am sick of hearing the industry fund bashing. Yes i do hold my super with one of these funds and my decision many years ago, which has been vindicated, was based purely on fact. Those facts being lower fees and superior long term investment performance, it's not rocket science. I assume this is most important to almost all other people so why do we need to continuously bang on about everything else?? It's because they need to tow the party line..... How many of these coalition members have received an income from a job within an industry fund in the past? Quite a few of them.

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Permalink Submitted by adam on Sat, 2020-07-11 09:57

I will make this simple. The reason for the “ industry fund bashing” is simple. IT IS NOT A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD! Us self employed small financial planners are forced to jump through hoops with compliance. SOA, ROA, opt in’s fasea exam, university units, high licensee fee’s I could go on and on. Industry can give personal advice over the phone. No compliance no nothing. Sailed through a Royal Commission and the objective is like China. Get rid of Financial Planners out of the industry so we can own it all. I do not care if I am the last one left, I am fighting. So Mark, enjoy, I just hope when you tried try to claim TPD and you can lift yourself off your wheelchair on to a toilet and can lift a spoon you may get shocked that your claim is rejected. My main question is why are the liberal party so scared to take them on?

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Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 2020-07-31 08:40

This is the most ill informed comment I have ever seen. Why on earth would you think Superannuation funds are not subject to the same compliance regime as you? Literally the only difference is intra-fund advice. For intra-fund advice, superannuation funds are still required to meet FASEA, BID, SOA, RoA etc. The only relief they get is the FDS/Opt in when it comes to intra-fund advice only. If they have non-intrafund arrangements with members, they must still abide by FDS/Opt in requirements. While I agree it is not a level playing field because of the ability to give what some members might feel is "free" advice as it is not an additional cost, but one they are already paying for from their admin fees in the fund. BUT be clear, these industry funds are expected to adhere to all the things you mentioned in your comments, there is no exemptions from FASEA, SoAs etc. Please do your homework and argue about something based on correct information.

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Permalink Submitted by Axl on Sat, 2020-07-11 12:59

That's 'toe the party line'.

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