Fair Work Commission Superannuation Review (AM2025/1)

Submission by the Australian Council of Trade Unions

Summary

On 12 August 2025, the Commission issued a Statement1, initiating a review of superannuation provisions in modern awards. The review, commenced on the Commission’s own initiative under sections 157 and 160 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (“the FW Act”), addresses three key issues: the absence of a standard employer contributions clause in certain awards, inconsistencies in the definition of the National Employment Standards (“NES”) in 9 plain language awards and outdated or incorrect naming of default superannuation funds in a number of modern awards.

The Commission has clarified that this process is not a statutory 4-yearly review of default fund terms under Division 4A of Part 2-3 of the FW Act. Despite the legislative requirement for such reviews to commence as soon as practicable after 1 January 2014, the Commission notes that it has been unable to constitute the required Expert Panel due to a lack of appointed members. As a result, the Commission has not yet conducted any 4-yearly reviews of default fund terms.

The Commission’s statement sets out provisional views that certain awards be varied to include the standard employer contributions clause. It also proposes updating the superannuation fund names listed in default fund terms to reflect current fund structures and branding.

The ACTU welcomes the Commission initiating this process of its own motion. In the submission below, the ACTU briefly addresses each of the three key issues and the associated proposed variations.

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