Forum

 
  Back to OzPolitic.com   Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register
  Forum Home Album HelpSearch Recent Rules LoginRegister  
 

Pages: 1 2 
Send Topic Print
Unions feeding on members' super funds (Read 1581 times)
juliar
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 22966
Unions feeding on members' super funds
Sep 18th, 2017 at 8:40pm
 
Bull S.'s corrupt unions are ratting Super Funds to make up for their dwindling membership which is at about 10% and falling.

Members funds are being mismanaged by greedy unions belching with gas from munching members' Super Funds.




Union super funds the real foxes in the henhouse
Thursday 14 September 2017

All superannuation funds need independent directors to safeguard the retirement savings of millions of Australians from vested interests.

A report released today calls for governance rules to be tightened to ensure that funds make decisions that enhance their members’ savings rather than pursue the interests of unions and fund managers.

The report, Guarding your nest egg, published by the Menzies Research Centre, recommends mandating a third of independent directors and an independent chair on all superannuation fund boards should be a minimum requirement.

“Industry super funds have spent millions on a lavish advertising campaign designed to portray privately operated funds as the fox in the hen house,” said Mr Nick Cater, Executive Director of the Menzies Research Centre.

“This report makes clear that union dominance on boards poses the biggest threat to your nest egg.

“It is a case of jobs for the boys - with the emphasis on boys. Incredibly their boards have some of the lowest proportions of female directors in the country.

“They lack the professional expertise, diversity and experience that savers have a right to expect.”


...
On retail fund boards more than a third of the board are women, while in industry funds there are barely a quarter,” said Mr Cater.

The report by Associate Professor David Morrison directly rebuts the review by Bernie Fraser commissioned by industry superannuation funds which argues that current arrangements should continue.

“Mr Fraser’s recommendations are at odds with concerns raised by two previous Government Inquiry Reports, both recommending improvements with respect to director independence and transparency.

“Those recommendations are consistent with adverse findings within both the retail and industry superannuation sectors and findings around directors outside the sector,” Associate Professor Morrison said.

The report dismisses the claim that industry super funds produce better returns as an “apples and oranges” comparison.

Union-backed funds have a younger cohort of members, allowing them to pursue aggressive growth strategies, while other funds have older members, many in retirement and adopt conservative investment decisions geared to wealth preservation.

https://www.menziesrc.org/news/item/media-release-union-super-funds-the-real-fox...
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
juliar
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 22966
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #1 - Sep 18th, 2017 at 8:52pm
 
Beware Bull S.'s vision for Australia is a desolate sclerotic Socialist wasteland sinking in a sea of DEBT.

Bull S. would reduce Australia to a 4th world country just like Sth Aust is now.

Heaven help Australia if it ever has the blundering amateurish attempts of the Labor imbeciles inflicted on it again.


...
What that awful Socialist Bull S. reckons you should drive.




Bill Shorten wants you driving a trabant, not a BMW
Nick Cater writes in The Australian: Tuesday, 12 September 2017

Why does Labor struggle with the S-word?

The British Labour Party is led by a proud socialist. Hillary Clinton came close to being trumped by a socialist as the Democratic nominee for US president.

Yet when Mathias Cormann suggested that a socialist is leader of the ALP, Labor-friendly bloggers were indignant.

It was a red scare from a sad and pathetic man, wrote one adjectively challenged writer. “Is it wrong to say ‘piss off back to where you came from?’ ” asked another, shunning the language of inclusiveness.

“Trouble is,” cautioned a third, “that those around me who rely on the Murdoch press are buying it hook line and sinker.”

Socialism — “a theory or system of social organisation which advocates vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production in the community as a whole”, to quote Macquarie dictionary — is back in fashion. Its resurgence demonstrates the gulli­bility of the intelligentsia and a drought of good policy that leads to the grasping of straws.

It also suggests a careless attitude to history, which tells us clearly what becomes of economies where the technocrats dictate the allocation of resources and how to redistribute the spoils.

The experiment that split central ­Europe in half, imposing socialism on one side and allowing free markets to flourish on the other, produced conclusive results. When the Berlin Wall came down four decades later, they were driving Audis and BMWs on one side and Ladas and Trabants on the other.

Bill Shorten made a cynical calculation that Australians had forgotten the historic failure of soc­ialism, Cormann said in a speech to the Sydney Institute last month.

“His divisive rhetoric of haves and have-nots is socialist revisionism at its worst,” said Cormann. Labor’s instinct to intervene in markets in the name of “fairness” would make Australia “a duller and less prosperous place”.

There was a time when Labor leaders agreed that a fair society was impossible without prosperity. No matter how meticulously you carve up the scraps on the plate, everyone goes hungry.

“Labor’s social goals cannot be achieved, either in the short or long term, without sustained, non-inflationary growth,” Bob Hawke told the 1988 NSW Labor state conference. “While all Australians have benefited from economic recovery, the greatest beneficiaries in relative terms have been the poor and disadvantaged, and low and middle-income earners.”

Labor no longer believes in what it dismissively terms the “trickle-down effect”. It ignores decades of steady income growth for the poorest as well as the richest and the effects of tax transfers to low and middle-income earners that make Australia one of the most equal and socially mobile nations on earth.

When Labor talks of growth these days it insists that it must be “inclusive”, a qualification Hawke found unnecessary to make. An expanding economy creates new opportunities that the middle class is swift to grasp without any help from the state.

Shortenomics — higher taxes, more government spending and greater regulation — is “a recipe for economic decline and social division”, said Cormann. Shorten is misreading the aspirational spirit of the Australian people by stoking grievance and attacking business and millionaires.

“I find it hard to believe that Australians really want the sort of Australia that Bill Shorten is promoting,” he says.

Yet Newspoll shows that voters are buying the Shorten rhetoric and for that the Coalition shares some of the blame. The Coalition has limply resisted the fairness warriors and at times is tempted to appease them. Increasing the top tax rate, albeit temporarily, and changing superannuation concessions for the relatively well-off were futile attempts to beat Labor at its own game.

If the Coalition is to triumph in the equity war it must regain confidence in its own empowering philosophy of freedom. It must campaign — as Bob Menzies did — on the fair go with its promise of equal opportunity, rather than ­engage in an impossible debate on equal outcomes.

More than ever, it must defend the principle of economic freedom that underpinned Australia’s steady growth since World War II. It must be clear about when governments should intervene in the economy and when they should not.

For Menzies, the most solemn duty of government was to foster a climate that allowed individuals to prosper and businesses to flourish.

In practice, this meant enforcing fair play with maximum competi­tion.

Read the rest of this sickening Socialist rubbish here

https://www.menziesrc.org/news/item/bill-shorten-wants-you-driving-a-trabant-not...
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Grappler Truth Teller Feller
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 79579
Proud pre-1850's NO Voter
Gender: male
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #2 - Sep 18th, 2017 at 9:04pm
 
Times many it's been explained to you that most Western civilisations and economies are part socialist and part capitalist, and that the only real problems arise when one or the other gains too much control - which is precisely what is happening in this nation right now with public control of essential utilities and services being flogged off into the capitalist field, thus causing massive rises in costs and runaway capitalism without any constraints.

All this nonsense of name-calling people 'socialist' as if that is some kind of evil is just as crazy as labeling a capitalist as something of total evil.

Return to us our roads, our power, our gas and all the other essentials of life, and let the capitalists make merry with the real fields of capitalist entrepreneurial endeavour rather than exploiting captive populations forced to buy or go without, thus creating massive rises in costs of living and thus endless real inflation (which the GST created BTW- but nobody wants to hear that).

There are areas of governance that must be retained under the control of the people via their State mechanism , and that is what is failing in this nation right now.
Back to top
 

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
― John Adams
 
IP Logged
 
Its time
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Boot libs out

Posts: 25639
Gender: female
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #3 - Sep 18th, 2017 at 11:09pm
 
Are union funds still outperforming the banks funds  Grin
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
juliar
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 22966
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #4 - Sep 18th, 2017 at 11:32pm
 
bit of the fake stuff from the Lefties disappointed that the cat is out of the bag over the unions exploitation of members super funds.

But now back to the REAL news.




The powerful interest groups using your retirement money to feather their nests
By Staff Writers - July 10, 2017 21297

...

One of the most brazen examples of minority interests skewing our public policy debate is the co-ordinated control of capital and political power by trade unions, hiding behind the brand of industry superannuation.

Industry Super Australia is one of the largest and most well-resourced lobbying outfits in Australia, employing over 20 staff, at least two of whom are full-time Canberra-based lobbyists, under the auspice of advocacy on a single topic – superannuation.

The industry superannuation funds spend over $32 million of consumers’ retirement savings each year on advertising. Their political lobbyists, Industry Super Australia, alone spend $7 million each year.

There is no doubt that industry funds, as a collective, are strong performers on the investment front. But they betray people’s trust when they funnel members’ retirement savings into political campaigns run by opaque structures.

People join mutual organisations like trade unions and industry super funds so profits are returned to them, not to fund extreme campaigns, like the CFMEU’s, against the rule of law.

Co-ordination and groupings
There is a network of related parties, broadly structured around an opaque holding company called Industry Super Holdings.

Industry Super Holdings is a vertically integrated network of service providers owned collectively by the industry funds that include:

    A bank (ME Bank);
    A funds management business (Industry Funds Management);
    A financial advice business (Industry Fund Services);
    A mortgage broker;
    A credit control business;
    An eligible rollover fund (AusFund);
    An investment platform; and
    Their political advocacy and advertising body (Industry Super Australia).


At any time, the boards of these entities read like a list of a who’s who of union bosses: Craig Thompson (jailed), Michael Williamson (jailed), Sally McManus and the CFMEU’s Dave Noonan and Michael O’Connor. Many of whom have either broken the law or stated they are prepared to break the law to get what they want.

Anti-democratic funding flows
Trade unions are in terminal decline – less than 10 per cent of private sector workers have chosen to join a union, and in total there are only 1.6 million employees who are also union members across the country.

But industry super has ensured the ongoing power of trade unions, with over five million consumers enrolled compulsorily, under legislation, into an industry (union) super fund.

    These employees would not even be aware their retirement savings are being used to fund trade union advocacy. That is the whole point – if they knew they would vote with their feet.

Over recent years, it has become clear Industry Super has two primary policy objectives to keep this structure running:

    To protect a $10 billion per annum monopoly on superannuation contributions paid to their funds which is enshrined in Labor’s Fair Work Commission; and
    To protect their control over these flows of capital by retaining legislation to guarantee the board positions of trade union officials on industry fund boards.

To be clear, the unions have created a structure which protects the flow of capital into industry funds and the control of that capital by trade unions. That capital is then skimmed to fund political campaigns for unions and the ALP, which in turn protect and introduce legislation that favour industry funds.

And what is this cosy, legislative scheme worth to the ALP and the trade unions? Over $53 million has been paid from industry funds and their related parties to trade unions in the past decade.

Entities related to the Industry Super Holdings structure alone have paid various trade unions $4.5 million, with most of that occurring in the last five years.

Now that the unions have lost the recent Senate debate on the Government’s bill to reinstate the Australian Building & Construction Commission and deliver more transparency and stronger governance laws for unions, they will have fewer lurks and perks as the construction industry is cleaned up.

https://thefairgo.com/powerful-interest-groups-using-retirement-money-feather-ne...
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
philperth2010
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 19597
Perth
Gender: male
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #5 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 12:03am
 
The Menzies Research Centre is an associated entity of the Liberal Party and full of crap....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menzies_Research_Centre

Quote:
Industry super funds have outperformed their retail rivals over the year and the decade, while also dominating a new top 10 ranking.

Two of Australia’s leading super ratings agencies, Chant West and SuperRatings, published their 2016 data on Thursday. Both were good news for industry fund members.

Retail funds are usually sold by banks or investment companies and are operated at a profit, whereas industry funds were started by unions and are not-for-profit.


http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/superannuation/2017/01/19/best-super-funds-2016/

Roll Eyes Roll Eyes Roll Eyes
Back to top
 

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
 
IP Logged
 
juliar
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 22966
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #6 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 12:08am
 
A feral Lefty is coaxed out to bung on a bit of abuse. Otherwise totally useless effort.
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
stunspore
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 5088
Gender: male
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #7 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 7:29am
 
Its time wrote on Sep 18th, 2017 at 11:09pm:
Are union funds still outperforming the banks funds  Grin


Yes.  Which is why the government wants to change that.
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
hatman92
Senior Member
****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 332
Gender: male
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #8 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 7:55am
 
I had a couple of thousand dollars in superannuation from a job many years ago.  I see now I have a "preserved" amount of $20 left.

gg super.

Superannuation is a total rort to make the rich richer.  Who would not love being given billions to manage, and being paid for it.
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
aquascoot
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 32658
Gender: male
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #9 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 8:09am
 
unions are about complaining, whining and being cry babies.

in the business world , if you carry on like that, no one will work with you and you will be destroyed.

any union member with any aspiration would give their super to a strong powerful influential aspirational and courageous alpha male to manage.  such a manager is dialled in to the opportunities to move up and is vibing with other powerful and aspirational positive alpha males. successful people NEED to get around successful people.


your $$$$ deserve so much more then to be handed over to a butt hurt failure like a union fund.

unleash the giant within and vibe with the winning team, vibe with the natural party of success, vibe with the noble right, vibe with capitalism (the system of success), not with socialism (the system of the mediocre failure)
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
whiteknight
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 7595
melbourne
Gender: male
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #10 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 8:19am
 
Attacks on wages costing workers $100 billion   Sad
18 September 2017
ACTU

ACTU President Ged Kearney wage theft retirement savings

A new report commissioned by the Transport Workers Union - The Consequences of Wage Suppression for Australia’s Superannuation System - has been released this morning.

The report shows that downward pressure on wages caused by wage theft, wage freezes, reduced penalty rates and cancelled enterprise agreements has cut $100 billion from Australian’s super balances.

The report finds:   Sad

    Around 3 million people or a quarter of the workforce have experienced some form of wage suppression and will stand to lose out in their retirement savings because of lower superannuation payments compounded over time
    There will be a black hole of up to $37 billion (in real 2017 dollars) for the Government through lost taxes on lower superannuation contributions and the consequent higher Age Pension payouts.
    In the worst cases, where employers cancel enterprise agreements and force employees onto the minimum award, superannuation savings can be reduced by as much as $270,000 by the time an individual retires.
    In cases where employees are illegally underpaid, retirement savings can be reduced by over $50,000.
    Where enterprise agreements allow for below-award payments, retirement savings can suffer by over $40,000.
    When employers enforce even a temporary wage freeze, retirement savings can be reduced by over $30,000 over an individuals’ retirement period.

Quotes attributable to ACTU President Ged Kearney:

“When workers’ wages are stolen, wage growth is at record low, penalty rates are cut, and big business is cancelling the agreements it has with its employees, workers have less when they retire.

“A generation of workers to miss out on the security in retirement that they are entitled to - thanks to the policies of the Turnbull Government.

“The rules are broken for working people. A life of work should guarantee a comfortable retirement, but when wages are stolen and suppressed the system falls apart.”

“We need to change the rules so that working people are secure in retirement – it’s the bare minimum that any person in a first world country should be able to expect.”

ENDS
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
aquascoot
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 32658
Gender: male
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #11 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 8:34am
 
whiteknight wrote on Sep 19th, 2017 at 8:19am:
Attacks on wages costing workers $100 billion   Sad
18 September 2017
ACTU

ACTU President Ged Kearney wage theft retirement savings

A new report commissioned by the Transport Workers Union - The Consequences of Wage Suppression for Australia’s Superannuation System - has been released this morning.

The report shows that downward pressure on wages caused by wage theft, wage freezes, reduced penalty rates and cancelled enterprise agreements has cut $100 billion from Australian’s super balances.

The report finds:   Sad

    Around 3 million people or a quarter of the workforce have experienced some form of wage suppression and will stand to lose out in their retirement savings because of lower superannuation payments compounded over time
    There will be a black hole of up to $37 billion (in real 2017 dollars) for the Government through lost taxes on lower superannuation contributions and the consequent higher Age Pension payouts.
    In the worst cases, where employers cancel enterprise agreements and force employees onto the minimum award, superannuation savings can be reduced by as much as $270,000 by the time an individual retires.
    In cases where employees are illegally underpaid, retirement savings can be reduced by over $50,000.
    Where enterprise agreements allow for below-award payments, retirement savings can suffer by over $40,000.
    When employers enforce even a temporary wage freeze, retirement savings can be reduced by over $30,000 over an individuals’ retirement period.

Quotes attributable to ACTU President Ged Kearney:

“When workers’ wages are stolen, wage growth is at record low, penalty rates are cut, and big business is cancelling the agreements it has with its employees, workers have less when they retire.

“A generation of workers to miss out on the security in retirement that they are entitled to - thanks to the policies of the Turnbull Government.

“The rules are broken for working people. A life of work should guarantee a comfortable retirement, but when wages are stolen and suppressed the system falls apart.”

“We need to change the rules so that working people are secure in retirement – it’s the bare minimum that any person in a first world country should be able to expect.”

ENDS



Ged thinks his workers need to "take" more so they can get security.
but when you "take" from business, you weaken business and it is business that provides the security for the economy.
Ged is like the farmer who kills the goose that lays the golden egg and cuts it open to get the next egg out.
How foolish.

the paradoxical thing is that Ged should encourage workers to "contribute" in order to have security in retirement.
when workers contribute a company grows and becomes powerful and influential and this makes the retirement security a "sure bet".

its hard to get thru to people who are in "taker mentality" that "taker mentality" is the road to ruin.
But i assure you it is.

there is no limit on money or success.
you dont need to take you need to grow.

if you go to the gym and get bigger muscles, you arent depriving anyone else of getting bigger muscles.
you are moving up but no one is being moved down.

similarly , when a business is successful, we all move up.
no rich person is depriving a poor person of success.
there is no "fixed pot of success " and you need to get your share.  to think that there is, is to think that when you see a guy with massive biceps , that he "stole all the muscles and you now cant have any".  its just a flawed thought pattern that is so common in the mediocre leftie
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
juliar
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 22966
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #12 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 8:54am
 
Holy Moses the GetUp! advocate BlackDay is coaxed out of seclusion to pump up some more Lefty GetUp! propaganda.

Mrs Cash raised this gross corruption in Question Time as part of the Govt's denunciation of Bull S. and she utterly trashed the union corruption going on.

No surprise the Lefties are coughing up fake news to try to stop this female Labor killer.

Also Mrs Cash has Bull S. on the hot plate over his GetUp! activities.

And don't forget that Bull S. is just the puppet of the thuggish CFMEU.

But enough Lefty fake news so back to the real thing.



...




5 times your retirement savings funded unions’ thuggish behaviour
By Staff Writers - July 11, 2017 20782

Yesterday The Fair Go explained how unions bleed funds out of your retirement to fund their political campaigns – if you missed it be sure to take a look!

But how do they use that money? Here are five examples of ways they are frittering away your nest egg:



1. When the CFMEU illegally blockaded a Victorian building company and ended up paying $3.55 million in damages.


...
CFMEU National Secretary Dave Noonan admitted, that “the union was “well resourced” to pay the fines” but that “it’s not a great use of members’ money”. Source image: ABC

The union had shown a “disregard or contempt for the rule of law”, the court said.



2. When John Sutton, national secretary of the construction division of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, kicked and spat on managers’ cars.


...
Shows John Sutton National Secretary of the construction division of the CFMEU spitting into left handside of a managers sedan during a protest outside Morris McMahon in Sydney May 19, 2003 Source: SMH



3. When the CFMEU disrupted the $126 million taxpayer-funded centrepiece of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games with twice-daily, two-hour-long union meetings.




4.When the CFMEU (them again!) blocked the building of the new Perth Children’s Hospital

...
Image result for perth children's hospital



5. When they put union bosses first and workers last by making payments to union officials in return for favours which had nothing to do with workers’ pay or conditions.


But there’s more to come…

https://thefairgo.com/5-times-retirement-savings-funded-unions-thuggish-behaviou...
Back to top
« Last Edit: Sep 19th, 2017 at 12:23pm by juliar »  
 
IP Logged
 
juliar
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 22966
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #13 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 9:18am
 
It is important to understand how the corrupt unions carry out their sabotage and extortion.

The burning question: Are the Chinese paying the unions to forcibly close down ALL Australian industry so the work goes to China ?




Are some unions beyond reach of the law?
By Peter Strong - July 7, 2017 21304

...

Union bullying was once again on display this month when the head of the CFMEU in Victoria threatened to hunt down inspectors working for the Australian Building and Construction Commission, to “expose” them and make their children ashamed of their parents. It’s business as usual for the union movement, which has augmented classic standover tactics with more modern ways to intimidate individuals.

Now a particularly nasty part of the movement has broadened its attacks to target small business people, their families and their employees. Their crime? Disagreeing with the unions on a matter of policy.

It’s important to acknowledge that most unionists and lefties in Australia are fine people with agendas around fairness, social cohesion and welfare. But the people targeting the destruction of business people’s lives cannot claim to be of the thinking Left; their behaviour is more akin to far-right extremists, skinheads and anarchists, who use violence to get what they want.

If a small business owner expresses support in public for company tax cuts or for lower penalty rates on Sundays, their business faces a social media onslaught, including negative comments and reviews. Even workers who have been positive about the penalty rate changes are targeted.

There is also another underhand way of making business people toe the union line and that is black bans on deliveries to shops, cafes and other businesses. In one example a business had a black ban imposed by the Transport Workers Union on deliveries after the owner made comments in the media that the high Sunday penalty rates will cost jobs.

This of course was an ‘unofficial’ black ban and is illegal but it shows that some unions have their own rules that are different from mainstream society. It also shows they are aware that a business is unlikely to complain out of fear of further destructive attacks.


Businesses and lives are destroyed; one business owner I know personally developed deep anxiety. We have had to advise business people to be careful about making public comments.

Yet the head of the ACTU will not even condemn this behaviour, dismissing concerns raised at a recent National Press Club debate by saying that “the community will respond in any way they like”.

If it really is ‘the community’, it is the community affiliated with and egged on by unions. My community doesn’t destroy individuals who express an opinion. An attack on a small business is an attack on an individual. No-one should be targeted for destruction by powerful and well-funded lobby groups.

Condemning the behaviour of the bullies is no longer enough. The leader of the Labor Party and other elected Labor MPs and Senators must take action to protect small business owners from this rogue wing of the Labor support base.

The Fair Work Ombudsman and Fair Work Commission exist to help employees who have been wronged by an employer. The business community actively supports the ombudsman as nothing justifies breaking the law. Now we need a system in place to protect the men and women who are small business employers.

We need a body that can defend us when we are bullied by powerful interest groups. An employee can complain without fear of reprisal and we need the same support.

Perhaps the Australian Human Rights Commission should step into this battle and investigate the use of social media to bully and destroy business owners who exercise their free speech.

Sanctions, jail terms and heavy fines must be legislated so that anyone caught deliberately threatening, bullying or targeting a small business person or his or her employee receives the same treatment an employer faces when they do the wrong thing.

There are some 1.6m union members in Australia: only 11% of the private sector workforce.
There are also some 2.5m self-employed people who between them offer work and income to over 4.5m other people.

Shouldn’t we be backing those who give the opportunity to others instead of destroying them? And where would this end? Virtual violence, which is what this behaviour is, will end in real violence if we do not stop the bullies now.

https://thefairgo.com/unions-beyond-reach-law/
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
juliar
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 22966
Re: Unions feeding on members' super funds
Reply #14 - Sep 19th, 2017 at 9:59am
 
The probe into corrupt misuse of Super Funds by unions could well be the final death knell for Bull S. who is already hanging on by his finger nails.

This is panic time for the unions who misuse Super Funds to make up for their only 10% and falling membership.




Guess who’s playing with workers’ savings
Nick Cater writes in The Australian Tuesday, 15 August 2017

The game is up. Labor’s call for a banking royal commission is a campaign of convenience that serves the interests of its chums in the industry superannuation funds. Forget the tosh about standing up for the workers. The party of John Curtin and Ben Chifley is currying favour from the big end of town, the privileged and opaque sector of the finance industry that sits on a half-trillion dollars of our savings.

Labor’s questionable motives for attacking the banks are laid bare in a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign by Industry Super Australia.

Cue scary music, kiddies peering anxiously over the bedsheets and a gravelly voice-over straight out of the trailer for Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

“The big banks want to get their hands on your super and they’re putting pressure on our federal politicians to let them in.”

Labor believes in competition policy but hates competitors who nibble away at the magic pudding it bequeathed to its mates. The union movement’s stranglehold on superannuation is one of many critical flaws in Paul Keating’s over-regimented retirement income scheme.

The bottom line is that it is a lousy deal for workers who have had their wages docked for more than a quarter of a century and find themselves stuck on a modest state pension.

On the other hand, it is a handy lurk for union hacks who supplement their salaries by joining an industry super fund board.

Cbus, the default superannuation fund for construction workers, paid $1.3 million to its directors in 2015-16. Glenn Thompson of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union picked up $133,000: the Construction Fores­try Mining and Energy Union’s Rita Mallia $66,000; ACTU president Ged Kearney $52,000; Misha Zelinsky of the Australian Workers Union $59,000; and the CFMEU’s Frank O’Grady $47,000.

On it goes. Plumbers union boss Earl Setches, a pal of Bill Shorten implicated in a massive ALP branch-stacking scam, pocketed $66,500. Dave Noonan — the one who organises illegal blockades of children’s hospitals, not the breakfast host on Hobart’s Triple M — received more than $55,000.

Chairman Steve Bracks, the former Victorian Labor premier, collected $155,000. Cbus’s token “independent” director — former Labor federal minister John Dawkins — was paid $113,000.

So perhaps it is time to support the Opposition Leader’s call for a royal commission into the finance industry, one that illuminates the murky world of industry superannuation as well as the misdemeanours of the banks.

The banks, after all, are listed companies, overseen by boards that must answer to shareholders, front up to annual general meetings and are bound by rules of continuous disclosure.

The punishment for mistakes is merciless. Billions have been wiped from the value of Commonwealth Bank shares even before the Australian Securities & Investments Commission inquiry is barely under way.

Industry superannuation funds, however, enjoy a level of governance that would raise eyebrows if it applied to the local bowls club. No one gets to ask why, for example, the funds and associated entities have paid more than $53m to trade unions in the past decade. There is no opportunity to challenge the dominance of organised labour on boards. Trade unionists who represent less than 10 per cent of the private sector workforce are hardly in a position to represent the interests of the majority of contributors.

We have precious little information on which to judge collectively owned bodies such as Industry Super Holdings, which owns a bank, a funds management company, a financial advisory service, a mortgage broker, a credit control business and a spectacularly boring online newspaper that turned an investment of $12m into $3m in the space of three years.

The Heydon Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption barely scratched the surface, but what it did discover was alarming.

TWU Super was discovered to have paid its sponsoring union more than $4.6m from members’ retirement savings.

LUCRF contributed to a slush fund operated by the National Union of Workers, which in turn donated to Shorten’s campaign to become ALP leader.

Recently, under questioning from senator Jane Hume, ASIC was obliged to examine one CFMEU-controlled fund that had appointed a chief executive who left the NSW public service after a referral from the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption. The details of his alleged behaviour have never been publicly disclosed.

It is no wonder that under political pressure in 2015 to reform their governance practices by appointing independent directors, Labor and industry funds lobbied — and succeeded — in maintaining the status quo. In doing so they crossed the line from acting out of pure self-interest to engaging in partisan political debate.

The high-rotation “fox and the henhouse” advertising campaign, funded from its members’ retirement savings, is a direct assault on the Prime Minister.

This too good to miss probe into even more union corruption continues overleaf
Back to top
« Last Edit: Sep 19th, 2017 at 10:05am by juliar »  
 
IP Logged
 
Pages: 1 2 
Send Topic Print