Cbus chair Wayne Swan has defended the controversial appointments of three CFMEU-linked directors to the board of the $94 billion superannuation giant, as he apologised to 10,000 members who waited too long to receive their death and disability benefits.
Swan was hauled before a Senate committee on Friday morning, where he was grilled over the governance failings engulfing the embattled fund, including its links to the disgraced construction union and a Federal Court action for allegedly failing to process insurance claims in a timely manner.
Wayne Swan appeared before a Senate committee on Friday morning.
During an at-times testy exchange between Swan and Liberal MP Andrew Bragg, a heavy critic of industry super funds, the committee also heard Cbus had handed the prudential regulator an independent report it had been ordered to conduct into its governance, and the entire superannuation sector was grappling with issues stemming from third-party administrator Link.
“I want to apologise to all those who’ve been affected in our fund and that we, as a board, when we first became aware of the magnitude of this problem set out to rectify this problem, and something like 80 per cent of the unresolved cases have now been dealt with,” Swan said.
“We are also engaged in a very substantial uplift in our fund across the whole area of risk management, and part of the restructuring of the executive in our fund in recent times has been a new chief risk officer. So we have frameworks in place, and we are working with the regulators to ensure that they are the best possible frameworks.”
Cbus is facing action from both the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).
Strict conditions
ASIC is suing the fund over delayed claims handling, while APRA three months ago placed strict licence conditions on Cbus after this masthead revealed corruption, criminal infiltration and intimidation in the union.
It ordered Cbus to engage an independent expert to conduct a review of its ties with the CFMEU, and examine whether directors had acted in members’ best financial interest and were fit and proper people to sit on a board.
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