Combet appointment underscores Labor’s super linkages
ANALYSIS
Just a day after the Government’s initial response to the Quality of Advice Review which has presaged a greater role for superannuation funds in delivering financial advice, the Government has appointed Industry Super Australia chair, Greg Combet, to head its new Net Zero Economy Agency.
As a reflection of the enduring linkages between the trade union movement, industry superannuation funds and the Australian Labor Party, Combet’s appointment to the new agency is instructive.
It is also a reflection of the fact that Combet is politically highly-credentialed for the Net Zero Economy Agency role.
Combet is not only a former senior minister in the Rudd and Gillard Labor Governments but also a former secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and, most recently chair of ISA and the industry funds-backed IFM Investors.
Combet announced his own resignation from the IFM Investors board yesterday not long after Industry Super Australia announcing his resignation would become effective from 30 June, meaning he had served six years on the board of the industry funds lobby group.
The ISA announcement described Combet as a “strong advocate for members” who had led the ISA board “during a time of considerable change in the superannuation sector including the Royal Commission, Covid-19 pandemic and new legislative and regulatory requirements.
ISA chief executive, Bernie Dean said it was hard to overstate the impact Combet had had and that he left a super system and the nation “fairer, wealthier, and better prepared for the future”.
Announcing his own retirement from the IFM Board, Combet referenced the “importance of industry funds to the retirement security of millions of people and to the future economic resilience of Australia”.
The link between Labor and so called “Industry funds” is quite clear and always has been. Both are ultimately controlled by the unions.
Our current super system was implemented by Paul Keating at the behest of union leader Bill Kelty and union official Gary Weaven. While compulsory super was a great idea, the use of non government funds to implement it was a bad idea. It was done that way to create a revenue stream and power source for unions, at a time when union membership and influence was dwindling. Our compulsory super system would be much better if it was simplified and centrally managed by a government agency, Future Fund style.
Agreed!!! However Pigs may fly.
Also not only does the ALP have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo while changing laws to fatten ISF’s, but there are many self interest groups also with their snout in the trough that will fight like hell to maintain food supplies in said trough. How can mountains of scientific literature prove EMH and that it’s a bad idea to chase winners and then use tax payers money to name and shame underperforming funds. It all sounds like smoke and mirrors. Make it less political and you may have a chance.
EMH has got holes in it everywhere.
A key man and link in the corruptive power of the labour party and trade union movement controlling the bulk of Australians Retirement funds, and providing the labour government free reign to use our money to fund their green agenda(i.e. Under the guise of the ESG investment model that cons the public into believing their money is doing good for the environment).
If this open corruption wasn’t so serious, it would be funny. Now we find the key link(i.e. there corrupt inside man/ the double-agent) that shows how the ISFs managed to maintain there ‘vertically integrated one product monopolised model’ while simultaneously attacking the banks vertically integrated models, and destroying there business with legislation changes, hefty corporate fines, and pointed attacks on the morality of their business model.
At the same time we saw the ISF’s use members funds to advertise and destroy Financial Advice business’ (i.e. halving advice numbers from 31,000 to 15,000) with there pointed attacks on advisers, with the full support of Greg Combet and his merry men campaigning against anything and everything that didn’t give the ISFs ultimate monopolised control over Australias retirement nesteggs.
Now we see that as they have wiped out all their possible competition, super funds now want to be advisers(Ironic or sinister??) so they can direct all their super members into their monopolised one-product, vertically integrated retirement models.
They even have the audacity to ask for the legislation to be changed so they can tear a few more dollars out of each of their members accounts to pay for their expensive uneducated, indian call-centre, phone-jockey pseudo advice teams, again overcharging them for very little service.
They(ISFs) want the public to believe that they will be unbiased advisers even though they have NO CHOICE of product, and NO CHOICE over what they pay their super fund. Forget about Charging Dead People for NO SERVICE. They are going to charge The LIVING everybody they can for NO SERVICE, and a pitiful form of Roboadvice that only involves their own super fund, or their own aligned robo insurance models.
God help us all. The old saying of keep the masses ignorant definitely applies to this corrupted business model.
16,000 Financial Advisers are rather well qualified to identify a conflict of interest.
Greg Combet is BAD medicine, is now and always has been. This new role in super will be a disaster for advisers. he is as leftist as they come and will do as much damage as Steve Jones, at the very least. I don’t know what the answer is, I truly despair these days – look what the liberals did in power, they’re all as bad as each other now in just feathering their own nests and then they’re gone. Immoral and unjust, corrupt.