The politicisation of super?

Wow.. there's a lot to unpack in this one.

Let's just deal with the one interesting outlier, well to me anyway, in this article - the opposition spokesperson for financial services seems to get 'a lot of air-play' about his assertions that coalition policy on super funds transparency is being 'watered down' by the labor government.

So, who is Mr Roberts? Well, for a start he's the LNP's opposition spokesperson for Financial Services. A quick read of his, not uncontroversial, political career leaves you with the distinct impression he's a 'low flyer' from the 'Scomo camp'. He held the reins of the arguably disastrous NDIS scheme as its minister from May19-Mar21. He has a string of corruption allegations levelled at him across his entire political career. That's an interesting bio for a man who's accusing the super industry of not being transparent enough.

So, on the face of it, LNP's 'beef' seems to be that the super industry (much of which it's no secret is 'pro employee' by its very nature - there are many 'industry funds' working directly for their members, or notionally 'not for profit' funds whose members are their owners) might be a bit too 'employee friendly'. Sheesh they might even fund lobbying and advocacy on behalf of their members.. who would have thought?

So, as I suspected, it pretty much boils down to some 'no-one' LNPer 'wheeled out' to do a bit of 'employee bashing' via super funds.

It seems the LNP has added super funds to their pantheon of employee representation groups which need to have incessant propaganda levelled at them anytime the LNP sees an opportunity to undermine them. So 'super fund bashing' gets added to the LNP's standard 'union bashing' trope.

They really come across as 'odious little men' the current coterie of LNP 'ministers' in my opinion. Certainly nothing has changed, or been learned, by the LNP from their election defeat it seems.

It's obvious to any thinking Australian that employee representation needs to be improved to bring balance back into the employer/employee relationship.

We've spent 50 years whittling away employee rights, and employees ability to have their voice heard in the workplace. I'm not advocating 'business bashing' (oh alright just a bit now and again to make ourselves feel better :-P).

I'm talking about a sensible, statutory, 'level playing field' to ensure the already distorted 'power relationship' between business and their employees is 'balanced out' to an acceptable level (e.g. where employees can make wage claims and not be vilified as criminals for doing so).

buggered if I know 😛