Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, thank you for that. When I was interrupted I was saying this bill is all about MySuper. One element of it is converting more superannuation when people do not know that it is happening to the union super fund. I have not noticed those from the Labor Party who have spoken declare conflicts of interest, I might say. I know at least one senator who was at the top end of town—he sat on the board of directors of these very big insurance companies. And I suspect there are many others. Perhaps during the course of the debate Labor senators will indicate which of them as union officials, for no other reason—none of them had any great expertise in the superannuation or insurance industry—than that they were union bosses, suddenly ended up in the boardrooms of some of the biggest financial companies in Australia. They were all getting quite substantial fees.

How do I know that? Because the wink and nod arrangement was that, if you were a union official who sat on the board of one of these super companies, the only reason you were there—it was not the quota in that instance—

Senator Conroy interjecting—

I can talk about quotas over there. You were only there because you were a union official. The rule was that, if you got $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 or $150,000—I do not know what they got—as a director because you were a union official the money was to go into the union. But of course a couple of them—who can blame Mr Thomson—got a little greedy and did not follow the rules. The money they got, and I think in that case—I should not mention it because I am not sure of the facts; I thought it was over $100,000 but it might have been $80,000—