APRA reinforces it needs proof on Cbus trustee directors

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor/Publisher, Financial Newswire

25 November 2024

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has reinforced that it is odds with big superannuation fund Cbus over whether three trustee directors nominated by the Construction Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) have actually passed a fit and proper test.

APRA chairman, John Lonsdale said during Senate Estimates that notwithstanding that Cbus had issued a media release stating that the three nominees had been adjudged by Deloitte, as an independent party, to have passed the test that was not the position of APRA.

Lonsdale said that Deloitte had been appointed as a result of license conditions imposed on Cbus and that, “as I sit here before you we have not seen that independent report”.

“So the license conditions that currently apply to Cbus still apply and the matter is not resolved,” he said in answer to questioning from NSW Liberal Senator, Andrew Bragg.

“We need a fit and proper test to be applied. That is the license condition,” Lonsdale said.

The APRA chairman said the regulator needed to see the Deloitte report and to make sure the requirements had been satisfied.

Lonsdale also said that APRA did not have the powers to appoint someone to a superannuation board or to take someone off a superannuation fund board.

“That is clear,” he told Bragg.

Lonsdale could not confirm whether APRA had asked for the Deloitte report but said there was an expectation that it would be provided to APRA when the report is complete.

“And it is my understanding that our supervision teams are talking not just to the entity but the reviewer as well,” he said.

Lonsdale told the committee that it does not yet have a date for receipt of the Deloitte report.