Financial Standard Comments - In defence of superannuation Superannuation funds earning nearly 7% per annum over the past 20 years has forced minister Bill Shorten to defend the system itself while arguing why lifting SG from 9 to 12% is still a good idea. https://www.financialstandard.com.au/feed/latest?story=12208172 Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:04:52 +1000 Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:04:52 +1000 en-AU Copyright 2026 Financial Standard 5 Comment by Andrew () Super is not an investment it is a tax structure - even Shorten doesn't get it. What he means is the average balanced fund returned 7%,. If you invested more conservatively you would have earned less, if you invested more aggressively you would have earned more!
and for the record, superannuation is not 20 years old SG is!

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]]> Andrew () Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:04:52 +1000 Comment by Greg () Shorten is the bloke who's supposed to be the Minister in charge. No wonder we're getting some of the issues we are with the FOFA rules. Bill can only say what the Union Super Funds (USF) let him report.
Does Rainmakers research show that the USF preference for unlisted assets like direct property and infrastructure assets is due to their desire to provide 'smoothed' reporting of returns to members? Just because the asset isnt valued every day doesnt mean its value doesnt move just as much as the listed variety. Thats why the MTAA fund was able to show much better returns while retail funds were falling in value. But then when they could delay revaluation no longer, the asset reductions were brought to book and lo-and-behold, big losses in MTAA Balanced Fund. (Balanced Fund is actually a misnomer if you actually have 85% in growth assets - shares, prop, infra, unlisted)
The sad thing is that many people who were disatisfied by the performance of their retail super, were sucked in by the misleading advertising of the USF's, and then rolled over to funds like MTAA, and then got to suffer the same loss twice due to the poor investment standards in these funds. So clients who left the fund between 2008 and 2010 benefitted at the expense of other members, while new members sucked in by the voracious ad campaign were buying into a fund with artificially inflated prices. Compare the Pair indeed!!

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]]> Greg () Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:55:45 +1000