The Federal Government has been urged to amend the first tranche of its MySuper legislation to give employers more time to get their houses in order.
At the same time as some financial planners have expressed concern that the Government has not legislatively formalised the one-year transition to the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) arrangement, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) has called for a one-year transition to be applied to MySuper.
In a submission filed with the Treasury, ASFA claims it supports the Government's 1 July 2013 commencement date, but then argues "there is an urgent need for the Government to amend the original, first tranche MySuper Bill to extend the date by which employers making 'default' contributions in compliance with the Superannuation Guarantee … from 1 October 2013 to 1 July 2014".
It said it strongly believed that this employer compliance date had to be extended to 1 July 2014, "as to do otherwise will place superannuation trustees under undue pressure to have a MySuper offering in place by 1 October 2013", giving rise to complex and costly system changes.
"Compliance with these reforms will necessitate considerable changes being made to a mature and complex superannuation system," the submission said.
"The FOFA, SuperStream and APRA reporting reforms also have a significant impact on a number of superannuation funds," it said.
"Trustees need a degree of certainty to make the threshold decision whether to provide a MySuper offering, as well as the many consequent strategic and implementation decisions necessary to produce a MySuper offering."
The submission said that, to date, only the first and second tranches of the MySuper legislation had been introduced into Parliament and neither had been passed, and it was unlikely the industry would see the final legislation until well into the second half of this year.
"The time available to make all of the necessary decisions and implement the changes is reducing," it said.
