Andrew Bragg to step up pressure on Cbus chairman Wayne Swan

Senator Andrew Bragg has called on Cbus chairman Wayne Swan to clarify his Senate testimony, following new revelations about the fund’s CFMEU payments.

told the Senate Committee that Cbus got value from its partnership agreements with the CFMEU. Picture: Tim Hunter.

NSW Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg is calling on the chair of the $94bn construction industry super fund Cbus, Wayne Swan, to answer questions over the fund’s payments to the CFMEU, including whether some payments may have been illegal.

Senator Bragg, who is chair of the Senate Economics References Committee, told The Australian that there were “discrepancies” in Mr Swan’s testimony to the committee last week and information in this week’s report on Cbus by accounting firm Deloitte.

Mr Swan, who is also Federal President of the Labor Party, told the Senate Committee that Cbus got value from its partnership agreements with the CFMEU.

“We get good value from (partnership agreements) and that good value is measured and we’re accountable for measuring that,” he said.

But Senator Bragg said the Deloitte report said there were “no metrics outlined in the partnership proposal” to assess whether they were made in the best financial interests of Cbus members.

The Deloitte report, which was commissioned following a request by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority in August following media reports about the CFMEU, looked at nine separate payments from Cbus to the CFMEU, mostly in 2023-24, totalling more than $900,000.

The report found that Cbus did not have proper processes in place to ensure that its “partnership” payments to the CFMEU were in the best financial interests of its members.

It criticised Cbus for a “lack of consistency, appropriate processes, appropriate governance and necessary rigour” in how it made decisions on payments to the union.

Senator Bragg said “uncommercial and unmeasured partnership agreements” were illegal under the legislation, which requires super funds to ensure that all spending can be justified as being in the best financial interests of fund members.

“There are clearly discrepancies between the Senate testimony and the Deloitte report,” Senator Bragg said.

“If Mr Swan has given false or misleading evidence to the Senate, he could be held in contempt of the Senate.

“As a procedural matter, we will now write to Mr Swan to clarify these statements.”

Cbus has accepted all 26 recommendations in the Deloitte report, which cover the appointment processes for board directors and the processes around payments to the CFMEU.

The fund said this week that it had already been working to address some of the issues raised in the report and would be putting in place an action plan to ensure that the other recommendations were acted upon.

APRA has received the report but has not commented on it.

The chief executive of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, Mary Delahunty, told The Australian on Wednesday that it was important that the superannuation sector had high standards of governance to ensure that it was “continuing to grow the confidence of Australians in their ability to retire with dignity.”

She said trustees and board members of super funds need to make sure they held themselves to standards which were higher than those required of ASX listed companies.

There were a “range of governance models” in the superannuation sector, Ms Delahunty added.

“The key elements that define the superannuation sector are its trust structure and the duty for funds to act in the best financial interests of their members.

“Our sector is rightfully held to a high standard, given that we are entrusted with growing the retirement savings of Australians.”

She said the superannuation sector was in “regular and close contact with regulators” to ensure that it was “focused on the efforts needed so that superannuation funds and their critical service providers operate to the highest standards.”

“When there are instances of these standards falling short the regulators have tools to enforce consumer rights,” she said.

“We acknowledge that issues will emerge where services are not living up to member expectations.

“Our sector will always strive to be solutions-focused and, as we have seen recently, the superannuation sector collectively recognised the need to uplift member service standards.”

She said the compulsory superannuation had been “delivering for Australians for over 32 years” and had strong regulations and strong regulators.

“The system has been working well to build a substantial pool of retirement savings for

the approximately 17 million Australians with a superannuation account – with the

sector recently recording over $4 trillion in funds under management, and double digit

returns for members,” she said.

Originally published as Andrew Bragg to step up pressure on Cbus chairman Wayne Swan