Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese must stop the planned rollback to transparency and accountability measures for super funds which has been proposed by his government. Through draft regulations released under the cover of a very late Friday media release, the government is proposing to reverse the requirement for super funds to disclose how they spend super members' funds on sponsorship, advertising and payments. The Prime Minister must step in and stop this. The proposed changes go against recommendations by both the Productivity Commission and APRA.

Under current laws, super funds must disclose line by line to members, ahead of the annual members meetings—or the end of this year—what funds are spent on contracts for marketing, sponsorship and the like. The Prime Minister and his government propose to reverse this requirement, allowing super funds to hide how they spend members' funds via a lump sum of expenditure, with no line items, no accountability and no transparency.

It says a lot about the priorities of the Prime Minister and his government that taking away transparency and accountability from how super funds spend members' money was the very first act of Treasury. The question that must be asked is: What are this government hiding? Why are they removing transparency and accountability so soon after the election? Putting transparency, integrity and decency back into the national debate—that's what the government said. They now have the opportunity, and are on notice, to deliver exactly what they promised.