As successive Coalition governments attempted to mandate independent directors on superannuation fund to disrupt the “equal representation” model (whereby union shareholders are guaranteed half of all board seats), a common refrain from the policy’s detractors was that union directors were best at protecting fund members’ best interests due to their singular focus on worker outcomes.

The $120 billion QSuper’s recent application to the Queensland Supreme Court has helped test this contention and the results are, ahem, mixed.