My Money Is Not Yours to Control

How reassuring: the chief executive of a $92 billion union-linked superannuation fund believes Australians need to be protected from the dangerous idea of controlling their own money.

Apparently, I was capable of leaving school, learning a trade, building a manufacturing business, employing people, surviving recessions, risking my home, meeting payroll, paying millions in wages and taxes, and accumulating my own wealth, but I cannot possibly be trusted to manage my retirement savings.

For that, I apparently require the paternal supervision of unions, politicians, regulators and generously remunerated financial experts from the top end of town.

Chief executive of Cbus, Kristian Fok, wants minimum balance requirements imposed on Australians establishing self-managed super funds (SMSFs) in case they encounter sharks, schemers and scammers.

No doubt they might. Fraud exists, as does bad advice, and some people make poor investment decisions. The proper response is to prosecute fraud, regulate conflicted advice and provide Australians with clear information — not prevent competent adults from controlling their own property.

What makes the argument particularly brazen is that the article quoting Mr Fok acknowledges that most investors caught in the Shield and First Guardian disasters were channelled into those investments through platforms managed by regulated trustees, including Macquarie, Netwealth, Equity Trustees and Diversa. Yet the lesson we are expected to draw is that SMSFs require additional restrictions. That is rather like the captain of the Titanic warning me that my rowing boat looks unsafe.

Cbus does not come to this with clean hands. In February 2025, APRA accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from Cbus trustee United Super and launched an investigation following findings of fundamental deficiencies involving governance, fitness and propriety processes, and expenditure management. Those are APRA’s words, not mine.

The conflict of interest is impossible to ignore. SMSFs are competitors to large industry funds. Every Australian who leaves an institutional fund takes their retirement capital and the associated fees with them. Cbus is therefore not merely a concerned observer offering disinterested public advice, it is a participant in the market asking government to make it more difficult for customers to leave that market.

Naturally, this proposal will appeal to the Australian Uniparty. Labor has deep political and historical ties to the union and industry-superannuation establishment. The Coalition, meanwhile, will probably mutter something about choice before accepting another compromise that leaves government with more power and Australians with less. That has become the familiar routine: Labor proposes the ratchet, the Coalition complains about how quickly it is turning, and neither seriously considers turning it back.

Compulsory superannuation has created an enormous pool of private wealth over which governments, unions, fund managers, banks, consultants and activists all want influence. They describe it as retirement policy, national capital or an economic asset. I describe it more simply: it’s my money. It did not appear through government generosity. It represents years of work, deferred consumption and personal sacrifice.

A compulsory minimum balance would be especially perverse. It would tell Australians that financial independence is reserved for those who government considers sufficiently wealthy. Someone capable of establishing an economical SMSF with $150,000 would be prohibited because a regulator or industry lobbyist had nominated $200,000, $500,000 or some other arbitrary figure. It would also ignore the obvious point that funds grow. What matters is not simply the opening balance but costs, contributions, investment knowledge, strategy, time horizon and the trustee’s willingness to accept responsibility.

Nobody claims an SMSF is suitable for everyone. It requires work, record keeping, compliance and sound judgement. Some people quite reasonably prefer an industry or retail fund. That is their choice. What I reject is the institutional arrogance that treats voluntary dependence as sensible but voluntary self-reliance as dangerous.

This is precisely the political territory One Nation should occupy: defending the right of ordinary Australians to control the fruits of their own labour against the combined power of the political class, union establishment and corporate elite. The party should unequivocally oppose arbitrary barriers to establishing SMSFs and demand genuine transparency from every superannuation fund—industry, retail or self-managed.

One Nation’s opportunity is to articulate the principle the major parties have abandoned: government exists to punish wrongdoing and protect individual rights, not to infantilise responsible citizens. The law should pursue scammers, dishonest advisers and fraudulent promoters with full force. It should not use their existence as an excuse to herd Australians into large institutions favoured by politically connected insiders.

The reader response to the Cbus proposal reveals something the establishment repeatedly fails to understand: Australians are not merely comparing percentage returns. They are asserting ownership. Many would prefer to accept responsibility for their own decisions than surrender control to distant boards, consultants and political fellow travellers who may have priorities very different from theirs.

If Cbus wants Australians to remain members, it should earn their confidence through performance, service, transparency and accountability. It should not ask Canberra to build a higher fence around its customers.

I accumulated my wealth myself. I accept the risks of managing it and will live with the consequences of my decisions. I do not need Labor, the Coalition, the unions or the top end of town deciding that freedom is too dangerous for me.

Stay out of my wallet. Stay out of my retirement. Stay out of my life.