The Shadow Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation has accused Bill Shorten of placing the interests of “his mates” in superannuation funds ahead of every-day Australians.
In a statement in response to the Labor government’s 2011 federal budget, Mathias Cormann said the Minister for Financial Services has “missed the opportunity” to use the budget to help provide Australians with the choice and the benefit that come from increased competition for superannuation in modern awards.
“It is high time that Bill Shorten remembered that his primary obligation as a Minister is to act in the best interests of all Australians with superannuation – not in the best interests of his mates in union superannuation funds,” Cormann said.
“The current process for selecting default superannuation funds under modern awards is anti-competitive. It is not objective, not evidence based and not transparent.”
Cormann said for close to three years Australia has had a closed shop, anti-competitive arrangement to select default superannuation funds with a significant bias towards “union superannuation funds”.
“This may be in the best interests of the union movement but it is not in the public interest,” he said.
Cormann said in the lead up to last year’s election Labor recognised the problem and promised to refer the matter to the Productivity Commission, however since then Labor has not proved it has any “commitment to competition, openness and transparency in superannuation”.
“When the matter was debated in the Senate in November 2010, Labor arrogantly voted against its own pre-election policy commitment,” he said.
“Since then, Minister Shorten has contemptuously ignored the motion passed in the Senate to give effect to Labor’s pre-election commitment and actually refer the matter to the Productivity Commission.”
Shorten declined to comment.
