Media Release

Consumer protections at risk if Super Complaints Tribunal replaced

30 January 2017

Consumer protections at risk if Super Complaints Tribunal replaced

Consumer protections may be at risk if a proposal to scrap the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT) goes ahead, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA).

ASFA CEO Dr Martin Fahy today said the government should increase funding for the SCT rather than replace it with a Superannuation Ombudsman.

“The SCT is in urgent need of increased funding and resourcing that reflects its growing caseload,” he said.

“We don’t want to see an outcome where consumers end up with an inferior arrangement for dispute resolution when it comes to their super.”

A government-appointed panel has been reviewing the complaints handling framework for financial services since last May.

In December the panel issued an interim report, Review of the financial system external dispute resolution and complaints framework, which recommends replacing the SCT with a Superannuation Ombudsman and potentially introducing a compensation scheme of last resort for the financial services industry.

Dr Fahy said the SCT has a number of important strengths and protections for consumers and trustees that would be reduced or even jeopardised in a move to a membership-based ombudsman scheme.

“With the SCT, there is no monetary limit on access or redress and there is enforceability of determinations and rights of appeal,” he said. “That protects the consumer.

“A membership-based industry ombudsman scheme would provide scope for limits to be imposed on the type or value of claims that may be pursued, there would be no direct right of appeal and the possibility the individual would need to pursue contractual remedies against a provider to enforce a decision.

“That is why the industry is worried about this proposal.”

Dr Fahy said the industry sees an opportunity to effect meaningful improvement to the SCT through changes to the existing model, without the need to move to an entirely new type of dispute resolution body.

“There is significant scope to modernise the operation of the SCT through important changes to its governance, accountability and service model and this should be the priority for government,” he said.

“The current model has many aspects that are appropriate given the unique nature of compulsory superannuation as a financial product and the fiduciary duties owed by trustees to the fund members/beneficiaries.

“Superannuation also has other features that set it apart from other products. There is often great complexity in disputes and many parties that may be involved, so it is crucial to have deep specialist knowledge and expertise in any dispute resolution body.”

“The panel observed there is considerable merit in a compensation scheme of last resort,” Dr Fahy said.

“ASFA does not support any industry-wide compensation scheme that has the potential to involve cross-subsidisation by the APRA-regulated superannuation sector of losses incurred within other sectors.”

Dr Fahy noted arrangements already exist that effectively provide a compensation scheme of last resort for the APRA-regulated superannuation sector, in the form of Part 23 of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993.

For further information, please contact:

Teresa Mullan, Media Manager, 0451 949 300.

About ASFA

ASFA is the peak policy, research and advocacy body for Australia’s superannuation industry. It is a not-for-profit, sector-neutral and non-party political, national organisation. ASFA’s mission is to continuously improve the superannuation system so people can live in retirement with increasing prosperity. We focus on the issues that affect the entire superannuation system and represent more than 90 per cent of the 14.8 million Australians with superannuation.

Amy C. Edmondson

Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School

Sessions

Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.

Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011, and most recently was ranked #1 in 2021 and 2023; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019, and Talent Award in 2017.  She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organisational learning, and her articles have been published in numerous academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. Her 2019 book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth (Wiley), has been translated into 15 languages. Her prior books – Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy (Jossey-Bass, 2012), Teaming to Innovate (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Extreme Teaming (Emerald, 2017) – explore teamwork in dynamic organisational environments. In Building the future: Big teaming for audacious innovation (Berrett-Koehler, 2016), she examines the challenges and opportunities of teaming across industries to build smart cities. 

Edmondson’s latest book, Right Kind of Wrong (Atria), builds on her prior work on psychological safety and teaming to provide a framework for thinking about, discussing, and practicing the science of failing well. First published in the US and the UK in September, 2023, the book is due to be translated into 24 additional languages, and was selected for the Financial Times and Schroders Best Business Book of the Year award.

Before her academic career, she was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked on transformational change in large companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, and her book A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller (Birkauser Boston, 1987) clarifies Fuller’s mathematical contributions for a non-technical audience. Edmondson received her PhD in organisational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design from Harvard University.

 

Daniel Mulino MP

Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services

Sessions

Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Born in Brindisi, Italy, Daniel was a young child when he moved with his family to Australia. He grew up in Canberra and completed his first degrees – arts and law – at the ANU. He then completed a Master of Economics (University of Sydney) and a PhD in economics from Yale.

He lectured at Monash University, was an economic adviser in the Gillard government and was a Victorian MP from 2014 to 2018. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer of Victoria, Daniel helped deliver major infrastructure projects and developed innovative financing structures for community projects.

In 2018 he was preselected for the new federal seat of Fraser and became its first MP at the 2019 election, re-elected in 2022 and 2025. From 2022 to 2025, Daniel was chair of the House of Representatives’ Standing Economics Committee in which he chaired inquiries; economic dynamism, competition and business formation and insurers’ responses to 2022 major floods claims.

In 2025, he became the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services.

In August 2022, Daniel published ‘Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia’, which aims to explore the ways in which an insurance approach can improve the effectiveness of government service delivery.