Historically, I’ve been a fan of industry super funds. However, Cbus, the super fund of the building industry that has close associations with the disgraced CFMEU, is to be taken to court by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for delaying the super fund payments of families of dead members.

It also delayed insurance claims of members for an excessive amount of time, making its overall behaviour akin to what the Hayne Royal Commission was heavily critical about when it examined the malpractices of insurance companies and banks!

There’s no greater slagging an industry fund could justifiably cop than to say it behaved like an insurance company or bank!

And what has to be incredibly embarrassing for Labor is that former Treasurer Wayne Swan is chairman of Cbus.

ASIC has launched Federal Court proceedings against Cbus after it failed to identify (and then prevent) the delays that affected 10,000 members since August 2022, according to documents lodged in the court on Tuesday. And 6,000 members have waited for over a year for their money!

But these weren’t ordinary members with trivial claims.

The abc.net.au website reports: “The civil penalty proceedings allege that from September 2022 to November 2024, Cbus failed to act efficiently, honestly and fairly in the handling of claims for death benefits and TPD insurance.”

But this wasn’t just a failure of slack workers that the trustee of Cbus (United Super) was unaware of because ASIC’s actions had to be something that couldn’t have been hidden from the board of the fund, unless they were not proper board members.

How can this be suggested? This is abc.net.au again: “ASIC further claims that despite receiving reports from its third-party administrator, Australian Administration Services Pty Limited, United Super — the trustee of Cbus — failed to properly assess the scale of the impact to members and claimants.

When it did act in October 2022, the “response was inadequate and insufficient to resolve the issue”.

This is damning stuff especially when you see who this super fund was screwing. We’re talking about the wives and families of construction industry workers, who should’ve had access to their husbands’ superannuation as soon as possible, but one lady waited 15 months for the super money that was rightfully hers.

And then there were members who’d endured injuries, and as ASIC claims, there were delayed insurance claim payments. And even when Cbus was made aware of their failings, there was an inadequate response to rectify the failed processes!

This is the current position of Cbus: “We apologise to our affected members and their families without reservation and promise to do better. Cbus has implemented a number of measures that are reducing delays and is committed to further improving management of insurance claims.

“Cbus has established a compensation program for affected members which is being implemented now”.

Undoubtedly, court proceedings will ensure mistreated members will be compensated, but when industry super funds start acting like uncaring banks and insurance companies, the next steps have to be changes to the board and management.