AIST to continue fighting for Protecting Your Super amendments

The Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) has pledged to continue to advocate for key amendments to the Protecting Your Super legislation, despite the Senate Economic Legislation Committee this week backing the reforms.

The organisation said it remained concerned that the legislation would see some members lose valuable benefits, especially around insurance.

It warned that the measures proposed in the Federal Budget on low-balance and inactive accounts would “have a major impact on super fund members, removing insurance cover from large numbers of members and transferring millions of accounts to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO)”.

The AIST had previously sought the following amendments both before the Senate and in various stakeholder consultations, and said it would continue to do so next week:

• Protections against the fee capping being gamed;
• Using the Insurance in Super Code as the primary vehicle for effecting insurance changes;
• Default insurance should only be opt-in for less than $6,000 balance inactive accounts;
• Auto-consolidation of accounts should be directly between funds and facilitated by the ATO (without the requirement for funds to be sent to the ATO); and
• Implementation should be deferred until 1 July 2020.