In what represents an almost unprecedented attack on a serving senior executive within a financial services regulator, two Labor Senators have used their dissenting report on superannuation funds governance changes to strongly criticise Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA), Helen Rowell.
The two Labor members of the Senate Economics Committee, Senators Sam Dastyari and Chris Ketter, accused Rowell of a lack of diligence and unprecedented political intervention over an address she gave to a discussion forum actually underwritten by industry funds.
Concluding their dissenting report, Dastyari and Ketter seemed to imply that Rowell’s views broadly supporting the governance changes, were not back by the facts.
Their report stated: “The most concerning example of this lack of diligence was the unprecedented political intervention of APRA member Helen Rowell, who delivered a speech ironically titled ‘Facts, Fallacies, and the Future’, at the AIST Governance Ideas Exchange Forum in Melbourne on Tuesday 20 October, 2015.”
Their dissenting report then claimed “…but under direct questioning at this inquiry, [Rowell] was forced to concede that ‘it is very difficult to put any quantitative measure’ on the benefits that she was asserting”.
Both APRA and the Federal Treasury provided extensive submissions to the Senate Economics Committee broadly supporting the Government’s bill.
With the Senate Committee report having been tabled, the legislation is expected to be subject to a full Senate vote before the Parliament rises for its Christmas break.
