Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamiot.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday, November fourteenth. Top barristers say abolishing cross examination
Speaker 1: of alleged rape victims prior to trial would tilt the
Speaker 1: scales of justice against defendants. The landmark legislation proposed by
Speaker 1: the Victorian government aims to prevent retraumatization of alleged victims,
Speaker 1: but some silks say robust measures are already in place.
Speaker 1: That exclusive story is live right now at The Australian
Speaker 1: dot com dot AU. Australia's corporate watchdog says it also
Speaker 1: avails superfunds after it was revealed one fund failed to
Speaker 1: pay out death and disability benefits worth millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: In today's episode, what's going on at c BUS and
Speaker 1: why it could be a problem for the government.
Speaker 2: I don't feel like my husband would all stay with
Speaker 2: them if he had known this was going to happen.
Speaker 1: This is Karen Redhead, a mom of three girls from Perth.
Speaker 1: She's speaking with The Australian's reporter Mackenzie Scott. Because it
Speaker 1: did feel to me like they were purposely denaying things.
Speaker 3: I felt like it was making it excessively difficle and beso.
Speaker 1: Karen's husband, Jamie Bell, a fire sprinkler fitter and the
Speaker 1: family's breadwinner, died in twenty twenty two after a three
Speaker 1: year battle with a rare form of cancer. And my
Speaker 1: case looked simple because I was the executive of the will,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: His only ever wife, the only e a mother of
Speaker 3: his children, so it was like their most easiest case.
Speaker 4: And I was also listed as a beneficiary on his
Speaker 4: Seabuss account.
Speaker 1: Sea Bus is an industry super fund with just under
Speaker 1: a million members, working mostly in the building and construction sets.
Speaker 3: How long would it take them to pay you out.
Speaker 4: In the end, it was just over ten and a
Speaker 4: half months after he died.
Speaker 1: On Tuesday, it was revealed sea Bus has left thousands
Speaker 1: of its members in the lurch. Many of them are
Speaker 1: grieving families like Karens, or people with disabilities.
Speaker 3: Oddly enough, a whole lot of admin winter dies. You
Speaker 3: don't realize that there is these.
Speaker 2: Was something I didn't think would be as hard, and
Speaker 2: having extra things to deal with in that time is
Speaker 2: really difficult.
Speaker 3: It's a time when you really want.
Speaker 2: Your life to be simple as possible, Like it's impossibly
Speaker 2: hard and I don't think if anything, anyone could imagine.
Speaker 1: The Australian Securities and Investments Commission, also known as ASSEK,
Speaker 1: is taking sea Bus to the Federal Court over allegations
Speaker 1: it failed to pay out thousands of death and disability
Speaker 1: claims worth twenty million dollars for more than a year.
Speaker 1: The regulator is also alleging sea Bus was aware of
Speaker 1: the backlog but failed to take the necessary steps to
Speaker 1: fix it. Plus, it says Seabus's trustee breached its legal
Speaker 1: requirement to notify ask of the issue within thirty days
Speaker 1: of it coming to light. That means some of the
Speaker 1: country's most vulnerable people could still be waiting for their entitlements.
Speaker 3: It's as bad, I think, as we've seen really, and
Speaker 3: it's from a fund that's already in trouble on several fronts.
Speaker 1: James Kirby is The Australian's Wealth Editor and the host
Speaker 1: of the Money Puzzle podcast.
Speaker 3: There are quite literally a string of regulatory issues now
Speaker 3: emerging with Cebus. APRAA is also looking at what they
Speaker 3: call questionable expenses I'm quoting those words. And they're also
Speaker 3: looking at links for CFMBU. So there is a storm
Speaker 3: basically of issues now swirling around SeaBus.
Speaker 1: Last December, SeaBus filed what's called a each report to
Speaker 1: ACIK after being pinned by the watchdog. In that report,
Speaker 1: the superfund acclaimed its members were waiting on about twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars in benefits, but Asak alleges, Sebus got it
Speaker 1: wrong and the real figure could be up around a
Speaker 1: billion dollars.
Speaker 3: Well, we listened to the regulator. It's pretty carefully and
Speaker 3: they don't often do this. But if a regulator actually
Speaker 3: casts out on the estimate of how many people and
Speaker 3: more importantly, how much money was due here and didn't
Speaker 3: get sent out to people, then we'll take them seriously.
Speaker 3: So we'd have to think that the amount in question
Speaker 3: here is a lot more than we were given to
Speaker 3: believe at the start by Cebus. Most people don't pay
Speaker 3: attention really until they begin to worry about their money
Speaker 3: in the fund. That's what people really care about. So
Speaker 3: the issue with CBUS and this particular scandal is it
Speaker 3: is to do with money. It's not so obscure issue
Speaker 3: who are some political bon fight at this big superfund.
Speaker 3: It's to do with money that people were old and
Speaker 3: the period of time they had to wait for that
Speaker 3: money and linked with this is that just recently, and
Speaker 3: it's not a coincidence that on the money front are
Speaker 3: the financial side of things. One of the big ratings group,
Speaker 3: morning Star, recently downgraded the Cebus from average to below average,
Speaker 3: and that's an embarrassment, I think for a top fund
Speaker 3: like this, But it does tell us that the issues
Speaker 3: at Cebus are now becoming financial.
Speaker 1: Sebus apologized for the bungle, saying it was sorry for
Speaker 1: the delay in processing claims made by bereaved families and
Speaker 1: people with disabilities, and it says it's cooperating with the
Speaker 1: regulator in hopes of resolving the dispute outside court. Plus
Speaker 1: the ninety four million dollars super fun says it's put
Speaker 1: mechanisms in place to clear the backlog of delayed payments
Speaker 1: and pay compensation to its most severely affected members.
Speaker 3: There is no way out now for Ceabus because though
Speaker 3: they will say that they are cooperating, and if they are,
Speaker 3: it will be a fresh start for them, because clearly
Speaker 3: the ASIC people the regulators say that they weren't cooperating
Speaker 3: up until now, and basically between the lines, what they're
Speaker 3: saying is there was no good reason why this money
Speaker 3: wasn't handed over to the people that would do the payments,
Speaker 3: So that's a real issue for them. And I think
Speaker 3: one of the outcomes of this story will be that
Speaker 3: people are starting to realize, especially people in big funds,
Speaker 3: that they're on their own, that the big funds are
Speaker 3: something of a law to themselves, and when things go wrong,
Speaker 3: they don't tell anyone of the things go wrong to
Speaker 3: the extent that they inform the public. They just inform
Speaker 3: the people who are affected. And that's not good enough
Speaker 3: when you're talking about an industry that's now three point
Speaker 3: five trillion. There's nine hundred and thirty thousand people alone
Speaker 3: inside SUP. These are enormous, enormous funds, and once upon
Speaker 3: a time they could get away with this sort of thing,
Speaker 3: and I think now they're front and center that everybody
Speaker 3: has to pay eleven and a half cents in every
Speaker 3: dollar you make, by law, has to go into one
Speaker 3: of these funds. It's just not good enough that there
Speaker 3: isn't a regulator right on top of this. And one
Speaker 3: of the problems is that the funds have become so big,
Speaker 3: they're big fish in a small pond. There's different regulators
Speaker 3: doing different things, and Basically it falls between the tracks
Speaker 3: and that suits big funds just fine until it's sorted.
Speaker 1: On Wednesday, Asik warned SeaBus might not be the only
Speaker 1: superannuation fund mishandling members entitlements. The Watchdog's deputy chair Sarah Court,
Speaker 1: said it's conducting deep dive surveillance of other super trustees
Speaker 1: in light of the allegations against sea Bus.
Speaker 3: She wouldn't say it on it, she had some evidence
Speaker 3: from their earlier work that it is an industry wide problem.
Speaker 3: If the system could allow see Bus not to pay
Speaker 3: people the money that they would due they're own members,
Speaker 3: then of course similar issues will lurk inside other fronts.
Speaker 3: It's completely deductive that that would be the case.
Speaker 1: Coming up. What Wayne Swan's Labor Maids think about this
Speaker 1: brush with the Corporate Watchdog. Wayne Swan has been the
Speaker 1: Labor Party's president since twenty eighteen. He's also the chairman
Speaker 1: of the underfire superfund Sebus. He's been an outspoken critic
Speaker 1: of badly behaved companies for much of his career in
Speaker 1: politics and in the corporate world.
Speaker 5: When companies are rarding the system, they give a green
Speaker 5: light to everybody else to get in there and to
Speaker 5: do the same now the business community in Australia cloised
Speaker 5: group of honist tax paying corporate citizens. Many are, but
Speaker 5: some are not.
Speaker 1: When news of the SeaBus scandal broke, many of Swan's
Speaker 1: Labor Caucus colleagues backed him in saying it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: necessary for him to step down, but others suggested the
Speaker 1: former Treasurer should appear in front of a Senate committee
Speaker 1: to answer questions about how and why millions of dollars
Speaker 1: in benefits were withheld from grieving families and people with disabilities.
Speaker 1: Coalition Senator Andrew Bragg is chair of the Economics References
Speaker 1: Committee and Deputy Chair of the Economics Legislative Committee. He
Speaker 1: told The Australian he's open to it, saying Wayne Swan
Speaker 1: has never shied away from a public debate. In the past,
Speaker 1: Treasurer at Jim Chalmers, who counts Wayne Swan as a mentor,
Speaker 1: has been reluctant to weigh in.
Speaker 4: Now those allegations are before the courts now and the
Speaker 4: standard practice which I'm apheering to today again is comment
Speaker 4: on that before the course.
Speaker 5: That would be an inappropriate thing to do.
Speaker 4: But I'm a strong supporter of our regulators. Where they
Speaker 4: find issues that concern them, they shoot test them, and
Speaker 4: that's what's happening now.
Speaker 1: Some have pointed out the contrast between Labour's dogged pursuit
Speaker 1: of other corporations currently facing legal action for alleged misleading conduct,
Speaker 1: like Colds and Woolworths.
Speaker 2: Broadly, I think people feel that Wayne Swan has a
Speaker 2: degree of distance from the situation itself.
Speaker 1: Sarah Eisen is a political reporter with The Australian.
Speaker 2: Often, chief executives are the ones who really handle operational
Speaker 2: sorts of things and who are often held responsible, whereas
Speaker 2: chairmen or chair women are a bit further removed. So
Speaker 2: for that reason and for a few others, including that
Speaker 2: members of the labor Caucus and the union movement have
Speaker 2: felt satisfied with how the whole thing has been handled
Speaker 2: so far that there hasn't been a huge amount of
Speaker 2: appetite for Wayne Swan to step down, even temporarily while
Speaker 2: the investigation by Assex into SeaBus takes place. However, there
Speaker 2: have been a couple of voices who said it's not
Speaker 2: even about it being Wayne Swan's fault, It's simply about distraction,
Speaker 2: and distraction is the last thing Labour needs right now.
Speaker 2: So that's why Wayne Swan, in the view of some
Speaker 2: Labour people I've spoken to, should step aside temporarily to
Speaker 2: avoid any chance of distraction just a few months out
Speaker 2: from election and when Anthony Aberanezi is really struggling to
Speaker 2: land the reset that he's really been trying to land
Speaker 2: in recent weeks.
Speaker 1: Sarah Eisen is a political reporter with The Australian and
Speaker 1: James Kirby is our Wealth editor and the host of
Speaker 1: the Money Puzzle podcast. Public sector pay has surpassed private
Speaker 1: salaries for the first time since twenty twenty. That's according
Speaker 1: to the latest Wage Price Index figures. You can read
Speaker 1: our experts analysis right now at the Australian dot com
Speaker 1: dot au