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March 18, 2024

Abbott should keep his hands off industry super funds

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What does the evidence show? Industry super funds under current governance: provide a two per cent higher return to members than retail super funds; have provided a higher return consistently for years; and have NOT been embroiled in financial scandals as has been evident in a large number of retail funds.

As soon as this government under Tony Abbott was in place, they immediately REMOVED the consumer protections which had been put in place to protect consumers from unethical financial advisers. These protections were put in place after thousands of Australians lost all their money due to unethical advice from so-called financial planners, some of whom were working under the auspices of our banks!

By removing those protections, Mr Abbott effectively acted on behalf of financial advisers and the financial sector instead of ordinary Australians which he left LESS protected from unscrupulous advisers.

Now, he wants to give his financial sector mates a free pass to wreck industry funds. There is a lot of money involved – trillions of dollars are in super funds and that will grow exponentially. It’s easy to see where the influence on Mr Abbott is coming from – the big end of town. They want their hands on it all, and they clearly have influence over Mr. Abbott given the above, and now the current interference.

The industry super funds have proven themselves, unlike the retail funds. So there is NO need for government interference, in fact it is completely inappropriate.

What happened to the time-honoured approach of basing action on evidence? Industry super funds have proven to have consistently better returns and less Enron-type collapses than retail funds.

The rational approach is to make retail funds be governed by industry super fund management Mr Abbott.

Margrette Young, Dorroughby

 

 


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