Bragg positions to stay in the super lime light

Squizzy

4 August 2022

Squizzy is delighted to note that NSW Liberal Senator, Andrew Bragg, has managed to find his way back onto the two key Parliamentary committees guaranteed to be forums via which he can continue to fulminate on the many sins perpetrated by superannuation funds.

You see Bragg has managed to get himself appointed to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services as well as the Senate Economics Committee – two forums which has previously used to pursue the truth, as he sees it, about superannuation.

Credit where credit is due, however, as it was Bragg who, virtually on the eve of the Federal Election being called managed to elicit from Australian Prudential Regulation Authority member, Margaret Cole, that the regulator would be taking a look at super fund contributions to trade unions.

But, then again, Cole has only this week admitted to some naivety with respect to Australian politics, noting that the Federal Election and the resulting change of Government had been “an interesting experience for me as a relative newcomer to this country”.

Given her relative inexperience of Australian politics, Cole may see some value in having a fireside chat with APRA’s outgoing chair, Wayne Byres, whose tenure looks like ending before Treasury gets through with its analysis of the superannuation performance test attaching to the former Government’s Year Future, Your Super legislation.

Cole is fond of referencing metaphorical north stars. She may therefore care to view Byres’ departure as providing a target for her political sextant in navigating southern hemisphere real politik.