Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I have not seen the Clerk look so anxious for some time—hoping someone was here to speak on this bill. Clerk, I am here; I am trying to be as dependable as your good self. I rise to speak on the government's Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Service Providers and Other Governance Measures) Bill 2012. The bill before the House seeks to introduce the fourth tranche of MySuper legislation and also makes governance changes flowing from the Cooper review into superannuation.

MySuper is a new, supposedly low-cost superannuation product that replaces existing default superannuation fund products. If the passage of the third tranche of MySuper legislation last year, the coalition scored a significant policy victory for Australians planning for their retirement. They were at risk of having their savings transferred automatically, without their prior approval, to a government legislated MySuper account. The government was originally seeking to move two separate amendments in the consideration in detail of this bill. We now understand that the government has adopted one of our amendments and we are very pleased and encouraged to hear this.

The coalition will now withdraw our amendment which we had already circulated under Mr Hockey's name during the consideration-in-detail stage of the debate and, instead, move a revised amendment. The revised amendment relates to the Cooper review recommendation that an equal representation model should be adopted on superannuation boards. Recommendation 2.7 of the Cooper review stated:

For those boards that have equal representation because their company constitutions or other binding arrangements so require, the SIS Act should be amended so that no less than one‐third of the total number of member representative trustee‐directors must be non‐associated and no less than one‐third of employer representative trustee‐directors—

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