Senator Bragg releases yet another grudge report against Australia’s world-leading super system

The Chair has tabled an unserious, unsurprising report reflecting nothing more than his long-held loathing of Australia’s superannuation system, and the critical role of unions within it.

The report is unserious because:

• Committee members were once again given less than 24 hours to consider the Chair’s report.
• The Chair failed to call for submissions to inform the interim report on superannuation fund governance.
• The Chair has, across three interim reports solely targeted at dismantling superannuation, failed to address the terms of reference for this inquiry, which centre on innovations to Australia’s retirement system.

The report is unsurprising, because it:

• Reheats the Chair’s long-held antipathy to industry superannuation.
• Rehashes a failed 2015 Coalition policy to remove union representatives from super fund boards.
• Reproduces the Chair’s disdain for industry super, which he regularly. describes in the Senate as ‘enriching bloodsuckers, leeches and rent seekers’.

A Government Senators dissenting report will be tabled.

 

Quotes attributable to Senator Jess Walsh: 

“Across 3 interim reports, the only suggestion Senator Bragg has offered for improving Australia’s retirement system is to dismantle the best thing about it – our world-leading superannuation system.”

“Senator Bragg has made no serious effort to produce bipartisan recommendations on innovation for Australia’s retirement system – the terms the Senate approved for this Inquiry. Not one Australian will have one dollar more for their retirement savings as a result of this 15-month inquiry.”

“It is a waste of a 15-month inquiry for Senator Bragg to just rehash and reheat a position the Liberals held 10 years ago.”

 

ENDS

 

Media contact for Senator Walsh: Riley Geary –0484 964 541