Ducking the issue !

Hundreds of Wollongong people will be holding their breath  when a Federal enquiry into the failed Trio Capital collapse is released this week.  For most, it will mean the difference between retiring with a little private superannuation money to tide them over their final years - or being totally reliant on the old age pension.

Trio Capital's flagship fund was a fraud.   The money was syphoned off to overseas tax havens and not a cent of it could either be traced - or recovered.    Three government agencies tasked with policing the investment industry failed to perform their duty and the ratings firms who bestow triple A approval of investment funds also granted it the nod.

A class action sought to sheet home the blame for failure to properly probe this fund against the Australian Securities and Investment Commission ( ASIC ), the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority ( APRA ) and the Australian Tax office.  ( ATO )

The Federal government accepted limited liability and setup a $ 55 million compensation fund to reimburse losses, and then made the amazing decision that hundreds of investors would miss out because their funds were " self managed ".

According to government thinking, those whose funds were managed by authorities approved by the government and were mislead by this fraud somehow deserve compensation, but those who self manage their own affairs should have read the signs and not made this bad investment.

A clever shyster put together a scam that fooled ASIC, APRA, the ATO and a vast array of professional money managers who advise investors, but the government is claiming that these mums and dads are the only ones not to be compensated - because making that investment is their own fault.

The flak that decision caused was immense and the Federal government hastily retreated, and decided to have a second go at getting it right by holding the enquiry that is about to deliver it's findings.

There is no doubt that the appropriate government checking agencies failed miserably - and it seems that nobody has so far lost their job because of that failure.   Now it is a matter of whether the government is prepared to put it's hand in it's pocket and be fair - and deliver compensation to those who missed out because of a bad decision.

This week will be almost life or death for many !