Industry leaders question Govt's speed on levies
A roundtable of senior superannuation industry officials has decried the size of the financial services levies imposed by the Federal Government and the speed with which they have been enforced.
The roundtable, conducted by Money Management's sister publication Super Review, saw both the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) and the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) decrying not only the size of the so-called "APRA levy" but the lack of consultation around it.
Both the AIST chief executive Fiona Reynolds and ASFA chief executive Pauline Vamos were highly critical of the fact that consultation had been confined to just one week, and claimed that the Government had appeared not to listen to their arguments.
At the same time, Auscoal strategic project manager Colin McGuinness said the increasing size of the levies being imposed on superannuation funds was making it difficult for trustee boards to appropriately budget and plan.
Reynolds said the speed with which the Government had imposed the levy had to be weighed against the length of time and number of tranches it had taken to introduce financial services legislation.
ASFA's Vamos said "we had one week's consultation period on the levies and we were totally ignored".
"When you look at the ministerial determination that came out on Friday, I am sure that was written before the consultation paper came out," she said.
Reynolds said the fact that there was only a week's notice to choose three options - and the Government had then chosen none of the options but had gone with a hybrid - was indicative of the problems.
"All this other legislation we've been waiting for ages and ages, but with the collection of money - whoosh, it's out," she said.
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