Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Labor and Greens senators have just voted to protect the Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, Mr Shorten, from the appropriate and necessary scrutiny of his actions in bullying the Productivity Commission into changing its recommendations on how the selection for default fund arrangements under modern awards could be made more open, transparent and competitive. This is an issue that has been going for a very long time. In the lead-up to the last election, the government promised to fix the anticompetitive closed-shop arrangements that are currently in place when it comes to the selection of default funds under modern awards. This current minister has done everything he could to avoid making progress in relation to this. He is protecting the interests of his friends in the union movement for as long as possible. By voting down this motion today, Labor and the Greens have prevented the minister from being subjected to appropriate scrutiny on that.