Robertson was the original  convenor and driving force behind  CMSF and the other bodies  its success – both financial and  political – spawned.  Reading from a program for the  first conference, she says, there were  workshops on pensions and RBLs,  on the provision of advice, on the  best way to deliver super, and on  various investment strategies.  Garry Weaven was a sponsor.  He had left the union movement  for a time and became a parttime  executive at Westpac before  returning to the fold to build  Industry Fund Services [which  then included what is now Frontier  Investment Consulting] and  Industry Funds Management,  and to play a crucial role in the  purchase of SuperPartners and the  development of what became ME  Bank.  Funds represented included  BUS and AUST [which became  Cbus], MUST [which became  STA], HESTA and HostPlus.  “There was also a big tranche of  corporate funds at the conference,”  Robertson says. The head of  BHP’s super fund [Colin Wirth]  was keen to see the conference in  Wollongong.  “We decided to hold a one-off  conference,” Robertson says. “And  we decided on Wollongong to show  that it was a serious event, without  the normal bells and whistles.

A  lot of people were very negative  about the industry funds and there  was negativity within ASFA too.  We wanted to show that trustees  of industry funds were responsible  people and had as their only agenda  the aim to improve retirement  incomes for people.”  She invited the Liberal  Opposition at the time to  participate also, along with the  then-Treasurer, Paul Keating.  Richard Alston spoke about aged  care in retirement.  It was thought in those early  days that trustees were going to  need a lot of training because the  board positions would turn over  every couple of years, especially  among employee representatives.  This did not happen but it was the  main driver behind the formation  of AIST as a trustee educational  and research body.  CMSF also formed Women In  Super, which in turn established  the Mothers’ Day Classic annual  fun run, now a national event,  and the Australian Council of  Superannuation Investors, which  grew out of CMSF-organised  trustee study tours.

The study tours  in turn evolved into the biannual  Global Dialogue conference, which  brings together trustees and fund  staff from various countries. The  next Global Dialogue is in Hong  Kong at the end of May.  With the merger of CMSF  into a reconstructed AIST  which included the training and  compliance arm of IFS, the finances  of the organisation were stabilised  from a range of sources, including  fund membership [rather than just  individuals] and a broader church  of fund staff.  Reynolds says that AIST  membership has grown in the past  year despite the continued trend for  fund mergers.  But she believes there are many  things, still, that the industry can  do better:  • Back office functions  can be made more efficient, with  a greater focus on electronic  commerce