Your Future, Your Super Bill takes Super in the Wrong Direction

Australia’s employers want to see a superannuation system that delivers the best value to the employees on whose behalf they make super contributions. Employers also want to see superannuation work for the broader community by delivering strong retirement incomes and long-term investment. Our ultimate concern with the Your Future, Your Super Bill is that Australian retirement incomes would suffer if the proposed measures are put in place.

"The Bill’s shortcomings include:

• The clear risk that it will leave more people in poor performing funds for longer.

• Its approach to performance measurement is selective and incomplete and will not improve the choices made by fund members.

• It would create new compliance burdens that would add new costs and risks and would divert management and board attention away from improving retirement incomes of fund members.

• The arbitrary powers granted to the Treasurer of the day, no matter which party they are from, would set a dangerous precedent and would add a new and unpredictable source of sovereign risk to the investment process.

"These outcomes could have been avoided if the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) requirement had not been side-stepped.  A Bill as disproportionate, ineffective and intrusive as this would not survive a genuine RIS process.

"This failure was then compounded by a Senate Committee Majority Report that said nothing: it was sadly simply a rubber stamp," Mr Willox said.

Media enquiries: Peter Burn - 0427 666 579