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Ben Butler

AustralianSuper cuts weekly admin fee but raises annual fee for contributors

The nation’s biggest superannuation fund has cut administration fees that it charges most members – but some will see their fees rise.

AustralianSuper, which manages about $261bn of retirement savings on behalf of 2.7 million members, will cut its weekly account-keeping fee from $2.25 to $1.

However, it is also increasing the annual fee it charges people who are still contributing to their super, which is based on the size of your retirement account, from 0.04% to 0.1%.

Total fees for people accumulating savings will be capped at $350 a year.

For people who are retired and drawing down on their fund, the variable fee will go down from the current 0.11% to 0.1%, and the total fee will be capped at $600 a year – down from the current cap of $750 a year.

Aussie says that the result will benefit people with less in their super – those with a balance below $50,000 will pay almost 60% less in administration fees.

The average fee decrease for people who are retired and drawing down on their super will be 25%, the fund says.

In all, about 2.3 million members will either enjoy a decrease or see fees remain the same; it’s estimated about 300,000 to 400,000 members with larger balances will see fees increase.

The fund says insurance costs for about 1.13 million members will decrease this year. It has also spent considerable effort bringing investment managers in-house, rather than employing expensive external advisors – something it says has saved members $1bn over eight years and slashed investment fees for members in its main balanced option from a high of 0.84% in 2009 to 0.63% last year.

We are expecting to hear from Anthony Albanese in Brisbane shortly.

ACT Liberal leader congratulates new senators but doesn’t mention outgoing colleague

The Liberal leader in the ACT, Elizabeth Lee, has taken to Twitter to congratulate new Canberran senators Katy Gallagher and David Pocock.

Of note here is the complete lack of mention of former Liberal senator Zed Seselja.

Make of that what you will:

The New South Wales premier Dominic Perrottet has just stepped up to discuss his government’s new childcare plan, saying the $775m commitment over the next four years is an “investment in our family, in our children”.

Perrottet says the cash injection will “drive women’s participation, provide great opportunities for families who are struggling with bouncing their work and family life struggle”.

This is a once-in-a-generation reform.

We know this is an area that has been put in the too hard basket for way too long.

This investment today will increase places right across our state, over time and over the next decade ensure prices also come down – a saving of around $4,000 for those families with one child and close to $8,000 for those families who use child care and have two children.

It is nation-leading reform that we would expect other states to follow suit. This is something from a commonwealth level hasn’t had the traction that it needs. It has put many women in a position where they are not able to make that choice, they are not able to stay in the work place and this is something that will drive economic activity of around $17bn a year.

Pocock on being a senator: ‘I am committed to being accountable and accessible’

And here is David Pocock’s statement on his election win, thanking everyone who put their trust in him, and reiterating his campaign’s focus on making politics about people:

Our campaign aimed to make politics about people. We built a policy platform off the back of thousands of conversations about the things that matter.

I am committed to being accessible and accountable to Canberrans. I’d love you to come to my first quarterly town hall in July to continue the conversation.

The big falls on overseas financial markets have been echoed in Australia, where the stock market was already playing catch-up after Monday’s holiday close.

Within a few minutes of opening, the ASX 200 benchmark index was more than 5% down, with all major sub-indices lower.

The drop was not a surprise given the steep falls in the US, including 4.7% for the tech-concentrated Nasdaq index overnight.

The main concern for investors is that the spike in inflation continues to be worse than feared, which will prompt central banks to send interest rates higher, faster.

The US Federal Reserve, for instance, is now expected to lift its key rate by 0.75 percentage points later this week.

The S&P 500, a broad measure of US stocks, is down 9% in just three days, Bloomberg notes.

The Aussie dollar has also lost ground lately, trading at about 69.5 US cents in recent trade, down from 72 cents last week.

No doubt more to come.

It’s now official – former rugby union star David Pocock is a senator. The independent candidate has been officially elected to the federal Senate in the Australian Capital Territory, the Australian Electoral Commission announced on Tuesday.

He will join Labor’s finance minister, Katy Gallagher, as the ACT’s two upper-house representatives, while former Liberal senator Zed Seselja will miss out.

It’s now been more than three weeks since the May 21 election date, but the complicated process of distributing Senate preferences – about 115m preferences nationally, the AEC said – means it takes far longer to officially name upper-house results than those in the House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, the AEC named Gallagher and Pocock as the two senators for the ACT, after preferences were distributed.

“As with all aspects of the count, the automated distribution of preferences undertaken today was open to scrutineers appointed by the candidates,” said Australian Electoral Officer for the Australian Capital Territory, David Molnar.

The Northern Territory’s Senate spots will be revealed later today. The rest of Australia’s Senate composition will be notified “soon”, the AEC said.

The electoral commission said on Twitter that the Senate result was “one of the most complex upper house counts in the world – it’s so complex that we needed to write a program to distribute your preferences, as doing it by hand would mean we couldn’t provide elected Senators in time to take their seat.”

The ASX is following Wall Street into a tumble:

You can read more on the story at the link below:

Bowen says export and price control needs to go through parliament

I wanted to return to Chris Bowen, who also made the media rounds this morning.

He told RN Breakfast that there is a chance the government will seek to implement a 90-day temporary export and price control, to deal with the energy crisis. But he also warned the government does not have a “legislative basis” to introduce short term reforms.

But we would need to take that through parliament, there’s no legislative basis at the moment.

One thing this government will not do is … respond with an ad hoc reaction … we’ve had enough knee-jerk reactions.

There are real challenges, when we have a reform process we will explain it, we’ll take it through parliament and we will seek it.

Deputy PM Richard Marles made the rounds this morning, speaking from Tokyo and saying that he intends to build stronger relationships with Japan, while being open to further meetings with China.

It comes after Beijing ended its diplomatic freeze of Australia, and a breakthrough meeting in Singapore, where “full and frank” discussions were had on tensions in the Pacific and South China Sea.

Speaking to the ABC, Marles said he had wanted to ensure the “relationship was put in a better place”:

There was a desire in the meeting that we had, on both sides, to have the relationship put in a better place.

The door is open to having further meetings, but I think we do need to understand that the relationship has not been in a good place at all, and this is only the first step and there’s still a long way to go.

We want to assert our rights in places like the South China Sea; we see the importance of a global, rules-based order in the Pacific.

We’re going to go about our relations with China, but our relations with the whole world in a way which is professional, where we understand the importance of dialogue where we believe in the power of diplomacy.

Marles also appeared on the Today Show, emphasising his intention to build stronger military ties between Australia and Japan:

We’re not going to be looking to other countries in terms of influencing the relationships that we build with friends like Japan.

So we’re building this relationship with Japan on its own terms and it’s never been more important. China is seeking to shape the world around it in a way that it has not done before. That makes our strategic circumstances complex.

Both Japan and Australia are allies of the United States. We both have an interest in keeping the United States as engaged as possible within East Asia.

Dan Tehan wants parliament to return

Dan Tehan, opposition immigration spokesman, says the government should bring forward its first sitting date to deal with the energy crisis, and accusing Labor of trying to avoid scrutiny.

This, of course, comes only months after the Coalition had laid out a schedule with only 10 (that’s right, 10) sitting days before August 2022.

Tehan was on Sky News this morning, and said he wanted to hold the government accountable early (obviously there’s much more energy when in opposition):

The parliament is the place where we are able to hold the government to account, we’ve got an energy crisis and a skills crisis and we’re not sitting until the end of July, why?

I’m incredibly surprised, this was a government that said accountability and transparency will be at the forefront of everything they do.

It’s right to say the government should think about pulling this trigger, if we can’t get the gas at the right price to our manufacturing industries in particular, we’re going to see dire consequences as a result.

These are the types of questions we should be able to put to the parliament when the parliament sits.

A spike in deaths in Victoria today, with 15 reported in addition to 6,071 new cases:

NSW is reporting 5,157 new cases and three deaths overnight:

NSW childcare package

Tamsin Rose

Childcare in New South Wales will be bolstered with a $5bn package over the next decade as part of a state government plan to boost female participation in the workforce.

It was hoped the policy would create an extra 47,000 places across the state, enable private childcare operators to expand or build new centres and increase the workforce, including through university scholarships for early childhood teachers.

Announcing the policy at a Committee for Sydney event on Tuesday morning, the treasurer, Matt Kean, said the investment was good economic policy for everyone, not just women.

He said:

Childcare should not be a postcode lottery. This reform will transform childcare in NSW. Good women’s policy is also good economic policy for everyone.

Kean said the loss of female voters for the federal Liberals at the May election was devastating and that he would work to support women in NSW. He said:

I was devastated by that because my party should be the standard-bearer for individual liberty that makes our country great.

The federal energy minister, Chris Bowen, has said Australia is facing a “bumpy” winter as energy shortfalls bite across the east coast.

Bowen was on Sunrise this morning, and said that while there was increased strain on the energy system, he remained confident the situation could be managed.

There is a big chunk of coal-fired power out of action in Queensland. That has led to higher prices, and … with the situation in Ukraine, flooding and it being a bit colder earlier than normal, that has increased the load on the system.

It’s all being actively managed. We can have confidence in our operators, regulators who are working together with the states.

I believe that will result in a better situation for energy consumers and avoid blackouts and certainly minimise the risk of any load shedding activities.

The operator tells me there is no need to be concerned about blackouts in the immediate future.

I’m not here to give a magical guarantee, but I am here to say that everything that could be done is being done very actively.

Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has asked the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to declare a public holiday in celebration of Australia’s qualification for the Fifa World Cup – and he’s already got one high-profile political supporter in federal energy and climate minister Chris Bowen.

“A four-day weekend to celebrate the Socceroos win, is something I think we can all get behind,” Bowen told Radio National this morning.

“There’s a prime ministerial tradition isn’t there – any boss who sacks their worker for turning up late today is a bum, that’s what the prime minister should say on a day like this, we can all agree.”

Bowen was of course referencing former PM Bob Hawke’s immortal declaration after Australia’s 1983 America’s Cup win. We’re not sure if we’ll see Albanese in front of the cameras in a special white jacket adorned with AUSTRALIA, though. The current PM has only tweeted a simple congratulations (so far) to mark the Socceroos win.

“We’re very proud of them, a great day for Australia,” Bowen continued on RN.

Other politicians got on the Socceroos bandwagon, with a bunch of Labor MPs getting up early to live-tweet much of the game.

Labor senator Nita Green joked Australia was “going to be late for work” after the early morning start.

Minister for Sport, Anika Wells, was getting behind new national hero, Andrew Redmayne, who made the ultimate penalty save to seal the Socceroos win.

New MP for Bennelong, Jerome Laxale, asked Albanese for “permission to do the Redmayne dance in question time”.