The Australian censured by Press Council over superfund opinion piece
The Australian has been admonished by the Australian Press Council over its ‘Industry super must be taken to task’ opinion piece for a failure to ensure claims made within the article were accurate and not misleading.
The article by Judith Sloan, the paper’s contributing economics editor, was published on December 3, 2015. It discussed standards of governance of industry super funds and made the claim “supply chains are tightly held by union-related entities – in relation to funds management, investment, financial advice and custodial services” and “[t]he market is never tested because doing business with union mates is so much easier, it would seem”.
Industry Super Australia – which manages collective projects on behalf of Industry Superfunds – complained about the opinion article. It told the Press Council that while the article appeared as a ‘comment’ in the print edition and in the ‘opinion’ section online, the statements about supply chains being tightly held by union-released entities was presented as a statement of fact, which Industry Super Australia contended was inaccurate.
Voluntary super was all spent by the government, and we’ll get the rest of your saving next we’ve chopped down, your trees, dried up your groynd water, dug up your minerals, but their is still some gases under your gardens so we are going to frack your homes.
Comment pieces should be ruled differently by the APC. The APC should rule against the writer in question, not the newspaper behind it.