Nobody has kept industry funds executives and their helpers busier than the chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Tim Wilson.
That would be the same Tim Wilson with connections to the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the same Tim Wilson who championed the Coalition’s campaign against the
Federal Opposition’s franking credits policy, including controversially utilising a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, something which some have suggested helped Tim’s relative, Wilson Asset Management boss, Geoff Wilson.
So, anyone who visits the website of Wilson’s committee will note that he has been prodigious in using its Review of the Four Major Banks and Financial Institutions to place questions on notice interrogating industry superannuation funds about almost every facet of the operations, including any cross-overs which may have occurred.
So far as Rollover can tell, Wilson’s efforts have uncovered some interesting detail but nothing particularly juicy about the industry funds, but what has particularly taken Rollover’s eye is the manner in which IFM Investors has seen him off by adopting the old Bruce Lee kung fu tactic of “fighting without fighting”.
Apart from telling Wilson that many of his questions are outside the committee review’s terms of reference, it has answered most of his inquiries without telling him anything he probably did not already know.
Actually if Tim Wilson’s predecessors had be doing the excellent job that he has done over the past year, the Hayne RC would not have occurred. Also, we have also learned that the Industry Funds don’t like disclosing much at all. Their party is now over. Perhaps the Industry Funds need to stop screwing their competitors & stop screwing retail advisers, then fess-up sessions like this wouldn’t happen. The pendulum is now swinging back again.