Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

There was a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. It was referred to before in this debate. It was quite easy for the Deputy Prime Minister to pick up a pen and write a letter and say, quite rightly, that restaurants and caterers deserve special treatment. The Deputy Prime Minister or the Prime Minister could write a similar letter instructing the Industrial Relations Commission to have an open and fair process in deciding which is the default superannuation fund for each award. It could do that—it could absolutely do that. It is quite clear that they are quite happy to write to the Industrial Relations Commission and give it directions and instructions, but, when it comes to default superannuation, for some reason they do not want to open it up.

The government is happy to do a review. Maybe at the end of that review we will actually get to a common-sense process that does open up the decision-making process of the Industrial Relations Commission to work out which is the default fund. This involves very big dollars and very big business, and it affects most Australians when they change companies. Unfortunately, a lot of Australians do not pay close enough attention to their default superannuation fund when they start new employment because they have other things on their minds. It is a good process—it is good governance—to open this up to public scrutiny.

It is a simple thing to write a letter, as the Deputy Prime Minister has previously shown on a different issue, to instruct the Industrial Relations Commission. Answer me this question: why won’t you instruct the Industrial Relations Commission to hold a public tender on a frequent basis, a reasonable basis? If you want two years or you want four, I am happy to have that debate, but they should have an open, public, tendering process for the default super fund. I worked in this industry for a while; I know the issue. It is common sense. Can you answer the question: why won’t the Rudd government instruct the Industrial Relations Commission to have an open and fair process of selecting a default superannuation fund?