Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The minister has taken every opportunity to white ant, undermine and ignore the recommendations of the Productivity Commission. When the draft report was released earlier this year suggesting as one possibility the establishment of a new body independent of Fair Work Australia with the sole purpose of selecting and assessing the funds to be listed in modern awards, the minister promptly rushed out a press release on 22 August 2012 stating that the Gillard government would preserve the role of Fair Work Australia in selecting default funds.

With the final report now released and the legislation now before us, it is clear that this government has ignored much of what the Productivity Commission has recommended in framing the provisions of this bill. For example, this bill will impose a limit on the number of MySuper products in modern awards of just 10, contrary to the clear recommendation of the Productivity Commission that there should be an unlimited list of default funds. The Productivity Commission proposed a default superannuation panel. That will now not be created as recommended; instead it will be subsumed into the existing minimum wage panel. The new panel is not the final decision maker under this bill, as was recommended by the Productivity Commission; rather, the full bench of Fair Work Australia will approve default funds in each award after a recommendation from the expert panel.

The process of including funds in awards will only occur every four years, starting in 2014 when modern awards are due for review as opposed to an ongoing application process. The bill will now require that all awards have default funds, whereas currently there are 13 awards that do not list default funds and are therefore open to competition. That is clearly a serious oversight, and the minister has not wasted any time in fixing that up to make sure the interests of his mates are looked after. Instead of ensuring genuine competition, this bill will impose an additional layer of government intervention into the default fund market. There is absolutely no justification for doing this and for imposing the additional cost, complexity and delay which comes with that additional intervention.

Let us be absolutely clear in the House this afternoon. This bill, despite the rhetoric, has absolutely nothing to do with delivering a more competitive process for choosing default superannuation funds. On the contrary, it makes the process less competitive and hands even greater power to the retired union officials who run Fair Work Australia. This is nothing short of a grubby stitch-up by Minister Shorten and the Gillard Labor government to look after their mates in the union movement and put a distant second the interests of the millions of Australians who are compulsory investing in super.

If this bill is passed it will see the continuation of a process under which conflicted parties within Fair Work Australia continue to select default super funds under modern awards. The minister has been so desperate to protect the vested interests of his friends in the union movement that he has lost sight of his responsibility as a minister of the Crown to act in the public interest. What we are reminded of by these developments is the very close relationship between the industry superannuation sector and the parliamentary Labor Party. Let me just remind the parliament that there are four former directors of Australian Super who have become federal Labor parliamentarians or candidates—the minister, Greg Combet, Doug Cameron and Cath Bowtell.

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