Industry funds counter ‘secret’ document

The industry funds movement has strongly criticised a campaign mounted by a retail superannuation fund manager designed to counter some of the claims made by industry superannuation funds.

The executive manager of the Industry Super Network, David Whiteley, said the reports, published in Money Management, if true, were disappointing for the financial planning industry.

“For a leading financial institution to trivialise financial advice in this manner is deeply disturbing. It shows a lack of respect for the advice industry,” he said. Whiteley said he believed it was vital that financial advisers be freed “from the constraints placed upon them by banks and insurance companies”.

“The most effective way to achieve this deregulation of the industry would be to provide advisers with the legal protection of being required to act in the best interests of their clients,” he said.

Whiteley said that he believed the major retail fund manager referred to in the Money Management article made the presentation public to enable an open and transparent debate to occur on the issues.

“While industry super fund have invested in an advertising campaign, the total cost of the campaign over the past three years is less than 1 per cent of the estimated cost of sales commissions paid out of workers super accounts to financial advisers in the same period,” he said.