Jones vows to clean up super transparency ‘mess’

The Albanese government has pledged to overhaul super fund transparency requirements in order to provide Australians with clearer, more meaningful and more consistent information.

Legislation is set to be introduced to align the financial and accounting reporting obligations of super funds with those of public companies. The federal government has indicated that this will include filing annual, publicly available financial reports with ASIC.

An annual ‘Super Transparency Report’ will also be produced as a single source of granular, consistent information for members to compare the performance and expenditure of funds.

Furthermore, existing rules will be reformed so that every reporting stream serves a distinct purpose, eliminating duplication and enhancing clarity.

Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones said that members deserve the highest standards of accountability from their super funds to ensure they get the best performance for their contributions.

“Decades of scattergun regulation has resulted in a dog’s breakfast of reporting requirements. It’s confusing for members and onerous for funds,” he said.

“We are cleaning up the mess so meaningful, detailed information is made available to members, easily and consistently.”

Funds are now required to disclose information about the identity, value and weightings of their investments every six months, following regulations introduced by the previous government.

“Reviews of the superannuation system have found that superannuation portfolio disclosure is unduly opaque, does not meet global best practice, and that requiring the disclosure of portfolio holdings would provide greater transparency and allow members to understand where their superannuation is invested,” former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said in November last year.

The new transparency measures proposed by the current government come amid the existing review of Your Future, Your Super (YFYS).

Consultation commenced in September with the government seeking feedback on unintended consequences and implementation issues arising from the YFYS laws.

A number of concerns have been raised by stakeholders, including in relation to funds ‘gaming’ the YFYS performance test as highlighted by both Industry Super Australia and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

Chant West also recently described the YFYS performance measure as a “flawed” system that has failed to measure what is important for member outcomes.

Jon Bragg

Jon Bragg is a journalist for Momentum Media's Investor Daily, nestegg and ifa. He enjoys writing about a wide variety of financial topics and issues and exploring the many implications they have on all aspects of life.