THE Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will appear before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics at a public hearing on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 as part of the committee’s review of the 2019 ACCC Annual Report.

Chair, Tim Wilson MP said, "The committee is keen to continue scrutinising the ACCC on its pandemic response, enforcement, its review of hardship policies and in maintaining and promoting competition.

"Of particular interest, is the ACCC’s approach towards regulating the tech giants. Google, Facebook and Apple are dominant forces that could threaten competition and consumer interests. The committee is also interested in the ACCC’s role in the preparation and consultation phase of the News Media Bargaining Code currently before Parliament."

"The COVID-19 pandemic is not over. There’s still uncertainty in the accommodation and travel sectors as border closures and lockdowns continue. While mergers of struggling companies also warrant close examination," Mr Wilson said.

The ACCC last appeared before the committee in October 2020.

Public hearing details
Date: February 24, 2021
Time: 11am to 1pm
via videoconference

The hearing will be broadcast live at aph.gov.au/live.

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THE Your Future, Your Super legislation introduced into Parliament this week will implement a key Royal Commission recommendation that will save consumers up to $1.8 billion in fees in the first three years of implementation, according to Financial Services Council (FSC) analysis.

FSC CEO Sally Loane said the recommendation, to ‘staple’ a customer to a single fund, which they take with them from job to job, will put an end to the scourge of multiple accounts and unnecessary fees in the superannuation system. This is a policy FSC has advocated for a long time.

“The FSC also supports the objective of the broader package of reforms, which aims to weed out underperforming funds, empower consumers, and enhance the transparency of the super system for fund members,” Ms Loane said.

“FSC analysis on the benefits of stapling shows consumers will save up to $1.8 billion in fees in the first three years after implementation. The super industry can only justify calls to increase the super guarantee to 12 per cent if the system becomes more efficient.

“The Your Future, Your Super reforms, however, are not without weaknesses and we do have some concerns about the design of the new benchmarking methodology.

“To be clear, the FSC supports weeding out underperforming funds. Duds need to go, we don’t care if they are run by a profit-making company or a trade union and employer group," Ms Loane said.

“However, we want to see some changes to the design of performance benchmarks. The custodians of our superannuation system are responsible for investing $3 trillion in savings and small changes in trustee decision-making can have major ramifications for the allocation of capital in the Australian economy.

“The FSC is also concerned that while funds have been required to set CPI-linked investment return targets, and have measured themselves against these targets in Government mandated dashboards, they will now be retrospectively assessed against a new benchmark.

“While we will continue to work with Government in relation to the detail of the reforms, we commend their strong consumer-focused intent,” Ms Loane said.

The FSC’s submission to the Your Future Your Super draft legislation: https://fsc.org.au/resources/2130-fsc-submission-your-future-your-super-draft-legislation/file

About the Financial Services Council

The Financial Services Council (FSC) has more than 100 members representing Australia's retail and wholesale funds management businesses, superannuation funds, life insurers, financial advisory networks and licensed trustee companies. The industry is responsible for investing almost $3 trillion on behalf of more than 15.6 million Australians. The pool of funds under management is larger than Australia’s GDP and the capitalisation of the Australian Securities Exchange and is the fourth largest pool of managed funds in the world.

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AN AUSTRALIAN portable entitlement scheme is now desperately needed and would be practical to introduce if based on proven models, according to a new report by the McKell Institute.

A portable entitlement scheme would see accumulated benefits like long service leave and sick leave follow workers from job to job in an account, like superannuation.

The new McKell Institute report, Insecure Work & Portable Entitlements: a solution for Australia, has found a scheme that allows Australians to carry entitlements like from job to job could be modelled on successful schemes that currently exist in sectors like Victorian construction.

A portable entitlement scheme was recently identified by Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese as an area of intended reform, but the Federal Government has so far attempted to dismiss the idea as impractical. 

But report author Ryan Batchelor, executive director of the McKell Institute Victoria, said the case for a more universal portable entitlement scheme was now impossible to responsibly ignore. 

"When one in five workers changed jobs in the past year and 3.7 million have no access to paid leave that should tell us we need a portable entitlement scheme urgently," Mr Batchelor said. 

“COVID-19 has shown how vulnerable we all are when people without enough sick leave show up to work sick. Fortunately, there are now a range of practical models for implementation, several of which with proven real world track records. 

"The Commonwealth should get on board instead of trashing a good policy idea before they’ve even had a chance to properly consider it.

"Our report shows there are actually significant benefits for the government, which currently picks up the tab when companies go bankrupt and workers lose their employees through the Fair Entitlements Guarantee. Claims that the sky will fall in are simply not borne out by the facts," Mr Batchelor said.

"Australians are extremely comfortable with the idea of superannuation, and a portable entailment scheme would be analogous and familiar.

"The pandemic has shown us the significant cost of people turning up to work when sick. Any extra costs from providing more people with sick leave pale by comparison with the costs of this pandemic on our community.

"Australia invented long service leave as one of our many civilising workforce innovations. It's now time we built on that proud legacy."

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THE NSW GOVERNMENT is slashing nearly 700 frontline TAFE NSW jobs, leaving campuses across the state unworkable and creating the conditions for a privatisation fire sale, according to the Community Public Sector Union of NSW (CPSU NSW).

TAFE NSW has advised the union of two major restructures which will see 10 percent of educational support jobs go. Restructures in student services and facilities management and logistics cut 678 positions, including 470 regional jobs.

"Gladys Berejiklian and Dominic Perrottet are deliberately dismantling TAFE NSW to ready it for sale," said Stewart Little, general secretary of the CPSU NSW.

"They're helpfully trimming it down for future corporate buyers to come in and snap it up in another NSW assets fire sale.

"What do the people of NSW get from this gutting of critical training infrastructure? Fewer jobs and a hobbled education system. In the middle of the worst economic downturn that the state has seen in a generation the Berejiklian government is closing pathways to prosperity."

The jobs cuts include people who work directly with students, such as student advisors, customer support officers, field officers, VET fee help coordinators, help desk operators, marketing and promotions support officers.

Workers who maintain the campuses are also going, including: gardeners, caretakers, facilities officers, tradespersons, tool store persons, security officers,  asset and fleet control managers, and site services assistants.

"The union will be fighting these job cuts at every stage. TAFE NSW is a vital piece of infrastructure that must remain in public hands, not dismantled for private operators."

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