27th Oct 2022, 11:25 AM – Representatives Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 3) Bill 2022 - Consideration in Detail - Faith based super funds

The majority voted in favour of disagreeing with amendments, which means they failed.

What do these amendments do?

Fadden MP Stuart Robert (Liberal), who introduced the amendments, explained that:

Amendments (1) and (3) effectively excise schedule 5 from the Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 3) Bill 2022. That is the measure that allows faith based super funds to not have to meet the requirements of the benchmark that was put in place under the Your Future, Your Super legislative changes. We do that quite soberly. If we look through at the benchmark requirements that this parliament passed, it requires super funds to meet basic benchmarks of performance. If they do not, then of course they are named and they will need to inform their members that their fund is not performing to those benchmarks. If they fail a second time they are no longer able to receive contributions that are mandatory and therefore they can't be a MySuper regulated fund. This has already occurred once. Thirteen funds failed, and they all quite rightly sought to merge with other funds. Quite recently five other funds have also been named for underperformance.

It's not as if these benchmarks are onerous.

Whitlam MP Stephen Jones (Labor) disagreed, saying that:

Let me explain what the government is proposing to do and why the member for Fadden has just misled the House. There are fewer than five faith based funds in the country, and they are set up with a specific investment mandate. They say, 'If you join our fund, you can be assured that your funds are going to be invested in accordance with your religious and your faith based precepts.' Just putting the word 'Catholic' in your name does not make you a faith-based investment fund. Just putting the word 'Presbyterian' in your name does not make you a faith based fund. Putting the word 'Anglican' in your name does not make you a faith based fund. What makes you a faith-based investment fund is if your investment mandate specifically says, 'We are going to invest members' money in accordance with our faith based principles.'

Amendment text

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 5), omit the table item.

(3) Schedule 5, page 14 (line 1) to page 19 (line 14), omit the Schedule.