Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

In terms of scrutiny of a default fund, firstly, as I have made the point, the commission does not have the data that would enable it to do that yet. I hope it is publicly available soon. Should there be criteria? I do not want to say what the criteria should be, here and now. I accept that there should be criteria. There should be criteria to ensure that we have oversight of the default fund arrangements in every sector. But we do not have those criteria. I acknowledge that we have a less-than-perfect process at the moment but if we accept that there needs to be some change and improvement, we cannot, here and now, fix the problem. That is my frustration, Senator Fielding. It is my frustration with a lot of issues in superannuation. The lost accounts of $6.3 million, the conflicts of interest around commission based selling: these are considerable concerns. That is why I have said to the various sectors, ‘We are going to look at these issues. We’re not going to ignore any issue of contention.’

I cannot indicate to you whether the tender process is good or bad. You are right: the parliament can change the law. I suspect that we are going to end up with me, as minister, having gone through a process, coming back at some point in time with these issues of controversy in superannuation and saying, ‘Look, the system does need improving right across the board in a whole range of areas.’ That is the way it should be done, in my view. I am interested in your idea. It is what is in the best interests of the member—it is competition that works in the interest of the member that is critically important. I note your careful caveat about competition. Competition in long-term compulsory superannuation funds is not necessarily economically rational, but I will not go there.