Industry Super Australia (ISA) has revealed that it receives $21.7 million a year in funding from its member superannuation funds but has claimed commercial confidentiality on what it spends on its advertising campaigns.
According to evidence it has provided to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, ISA received $21.7 million for the year ending June 2017, on the basis of having received scaled contributions from 16 member funds based on fund size.
It said these contributions were “for the express purpose of undertaking collective projects on behalf of these funds with the objective of maximising the retirement savings of their five million members”.
Answering a question on notice resulting from the Senate Committee’s recent public hearings, ISA said the projects it undertook included research, policy development, government relations and advocacy as well as “the well-known Industry Super Funds Joint Marketing campaign”.
“In coordinating and executing these outputs for ISA member funds, economies of scale are realised yielding significant savings compared to each undertaking these activities individually,” the ISA answer said.
“ISA expenditure on specific consumer advertising sought by members of the committee and specific performance metrics related to their success are understandably commercial in confidence,” it said but added that “all of ISA’s member funds disclose to APRA their investment, operational and administrative expenses on a quarterly basis”.
It said the reporting items specifically included or otherwise captured expenditure relating to advertising.
