The Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer Senator Helen Coonan has defended the role of the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT) in her response to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry report.
Coonan says the Government doesn’t agree with the commission’s recommendation — contained in its report on the Review of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 and Certain Other Superannuation Legislation — that the SCT be abolished.
But she says the Government will consider more closely the commission’s recommendation that the Superannuation (Resolution of Complaints) Act 1993 be amended to enable the SCT to implement an incentive based system of charging for complaints resolution, and to give the SCT chairperson the discretion to name parties of complaints reviewed by it.
Commenting more broadly on the commission’s recommendations, Coonan notes that some of these have already been dealt with via the Government’s election pledge, while several others deal with issues that have been examined by the Superannuation Working Group.
