There’s the important role of the  Sole Purpose Test for a start …  there should be no restrictions on  what funds can invest in.”  And he is protective of the role  of the trustee board. Issues such as  enforced hiring of a certain number  of “independent” directors and  restricting the number of boards  that trustees can sit on may well be  addressed in the Cooper Inquiry  findings.  “I’m yet to hear what the  negative stories are about the  trustee system,” Howes says.  “Ultimately there are a lot of  people who are opposed to union  officials being on the boards  of funds. But I think the mix  of people and knowledge on  our [AustralianSuper] board  is amazing. Union officials are  just as hardnosed as employer  representatives when it comes  to getting returns … I could  understand the criticisms if  we’ve had years of poor returns,  but we haven’t. It’s been the  opposite. At the same time  there have been major issues of  corporate governance among listed  companies. Some decisions by  shareholder-elected boards, such  as Rio Tinto, have been very bad.  They’ve taken a fantastic company  and turned it into a dog.”

He predicts that boards will  have to put an increasing level of  trust in their staff as funds grow  and delegate more. And there will  be a greater influx of professionals  at both board and management  level.  “For someone like myself, I have  to leave my union hat at the door  … in many ways the challenges of  the future will be harder to grapple  with.”  Ian Silk, AustralianSuper’s chief  executive, says the real challenge for  industry funds will be to “maintain  the rage” [a reference to Gough  Whitlam’s famous words on his  dismissal in 1975].  “We have to maintain our  conviction that the not-for-profit  model is best … we have to  sustain the trustee system and the  operating model. My biggest worry  is renewing staff. I could see that  the model could succumb to a bit of  hubris. The fact that industry funds  have grown in their FUM is mostly  due to an Act of Parliament and the  investment markets. It’s not really  due to the wit and wisdom of the  people running them.”

There will be no hubris for as  long as Ian Silk is around, it seems.  Fiona Reynolds, chief executive  of AIST, says there are challenges  presented by the inquiries. The  Cooper Review, in particular,  has the potential to change the  structure of the industry.  “Even though we have these  reviews, the Government needs  to decide its take on reforming  the super industry. In the  past there have been a lot of  recommendations, such as on  adequacy, but when it gets to the  Government’s end, nothing much  has happened … this will be a test  for the Government on where  it intends to take super policy,  and whether or not it is bold and  brave enough to make some tough  decisions.”  In many ways, as industry  doyenne Mavis Robertson points  out, some of the topics which were  discussed at the first CMSF in  Wollongong 20 years ago are still  issues to be discussed today.