Treasury apportions equal guilt in superannuation

A key Senate Committee has been told it would be wrong to single out retail superannuation funds with respect to misconduct, with Treasury officials actually citing “arrangements with service providers, sponsorships, marketing activities and payments to nominating bodies”.

Under questioning from Queensland Labor Party Senator, Chris Ketter the Treasury officials disagreed that it was the case “that most of the scandals and misconduct have occurred in the retail sector rather than the not-for-profit superannuation sector”.

Treasury principal adviser, retirement income policy division, Ian Beckett said he believed the regulator had said there was scope for “improved performance in many areas, in all sectors, and that's why the legislation seeks to impose minimum standards across the industry”.

Ketter then pointed to “scandals with the ANZ's OnePath Custodians” and that there had also been issues with the Commonwealth Bank's Colonial First State investments and Westpac's BT Funds, with Tasmanian Liberal Senator, David Bushby adding that there had been issues with industry funds Cbus and TWU.

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At that point, Treasury policy analyst, retirement income policy division, Jonathan Przydacz asked whether he could add more examples.

“We've got examples that cover choice of investments, arrangements with service providers, sponsorships and marketing activities, and payments to nominating bodies,” he said. “Like Ian [Beckett] said, it does cover the spectrum of the superannuation industry. It's not something that you can isolate to the retail fund sector.”