Swan defends Cbus on APRA and Deloitte Report

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor/Publisher, Financial Newswire

2 December 2024

The chair of Cbus and former Labor Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, has claimed the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) was aware of a key ‘fit and proper’ assessment report by Deloitte at the time the fund announced the appointment of three new directors.

The three new directors are nominees of the under-administration Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) and Deloitte had been retained to assess whether they were “fit and proper” to fulfil their director roles.

The chairman of APRA, John Lonsdale last week told Senate Estimates that the regulator had not received the report at the time of the Cbus announcement.

However, Swan on Friday told a hearing of the Senate Economics References Committee that the regulator had received the Deloitte Report “and they will move on it in the timeframes they decide”.

Explaining the actions of Cbus to NSW Liberal Senator, Andrew Bragg, Swan said, “We had an urgency to move to announce our new directors; we had a deadline to appoint our new directors so we did so knowing full well they would receive the endorsement of those processes”.

Swan confirmed that it was he who had signed off on the media release announcing the new directors.

He said that Deloitte had been removed from the media release because its report was in the hands of APRA which had not made its final decision about an announcement about receiving the report.

“It’s that simple,” Swan said.

Elsewhere in his appearance before the committee, Swan defended Cbus’ involvement in “partnership agreements” with unions including the CFMEU valued at millions of dollars a year arguing that the value they delivered to members far outweighed the value of advertising delivered by retail superannuation funds.