The Federal Government has signalled the Productivity Commission (PC) will be tasked with a second review of the efficiency and competitiveness of the superannuation system.
The Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, Kelly O’Dwyer flagged the second review to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) conference while acknowledging that the PC had still not finished its first review, including scoping out alternative default models.
The second review by the PC is being viewed as capable of providing the Government for justification for further policy changes to superannuation in circumstances where O’Dwyer said it would pull together the recommendations of the first review, the final report on which is expected shortly.
The industry funds have expressed their strong opposition to some elements of the PC’s review of alternative default models and have argued strongly for the retention of the existing regime underpinning default funds under modern awards.
However O’Dwyer made clear the Government was determined to continue utilising the PC processes to achieve change.
She said a draft report for stage 2 would then be released in the first half of 2017, outlining possible alternative models for a formal competitive process for allocating default fund members to products.
“Finally, the Government intends to task the Commission to conduct a full review into the efficiency and competitiveness of the superannuation system — drawing on the criteria developed through stage 1 — following the full implementation of the MySuper reforms on 1 July 2017,” O’Dwyer said.
“It is an important process, and long overdue — in fact, it will be the first comprehensive review assessing the efficiency and competitiveness of the entire system.”
