Little more than a week after the Senate rejected the Government’s changes to super fund governance arrangements, a major national daily newspaper has claimed that union officials have extracted $5.4 million from their directorships on industry superannuation fund boards.
The Australian newspaper said it had conducted an analysis of fund records which showed that CBUS paid the ACTU $106,909 from members’ funds for ACTU president Ged Kearney to attend board meetings.
It said the nation’s biggest super fund, Australian Super, paid $800,000 to five unions, including $136,487 to the ACTU for Dave Oliver’s spot on the board and noted that CBUS also paid $205,779 to the CFMEU for construction union national secretary Dave Noonan to attend board meetings over the past two years.
The newspaper then quoted former Future Fund chairman and chairman of the Financial System Inquiry (FS), David Murray, as saying there were concerns about the suitability of union officials acting as non-executive directors on the boards of multi-billion-dollar funds.
The newspaper article also quoted Assistant Treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer as saying the payments to the ACTU cast a shadow over the ACTU’s campaign against the [Government’s] measures to bolster the independence of super fund directors.
“It would be concerning if pecuniary self-interest had been put ahead of members’ interests in the recent campaign by industry funds to derail minimum governance standards across retail, -corporate, industry and public sector superannuation funds,” the minister was quoted as saying.
