Dear Australian Prudential Regulation Authority,

I refer to testimony given by APRA's Helen Rowell to Senate Economics Legislative Committee on 20 October 2016 in a response to a question asked by Senator Gallagher on a previous response "that your own analysis of 10-year APRA fund level data revealed a reasonable number of retail funds in the top quartile performers. Is that correct?"

In reply as recorded on Hansard Mrs Rowell stated:

"That is correct".

However after this testimony had been given twice to Parliamentary Committees, Mrs Rowell should have check on pages 15 and 16 of the APRA report titled "Superannuation Fund-level Rates of Return" {Issued 8 January 2014), where a listing of APRA regulated superannuation funds is provided ranked in order of their 10 year average rates of return.

There are 45 funds in the "Top Quartile" and only one fund has been classified by APRA as a "Retail" fund. In fact their is only one "Retail" fund in the top 55 funds racked by 10 year average returns.

One fund in the Top Quartile of 45 funds can hardly be described as a "reasonable number".

The Government Guidelines for Official Witnesses before Parliamentary Committees requires witnesses to review the transcript of their evidence and to advise the Committee Secretary if oral evidence needs to be corrected or clarified so that the final Hansard record is not "false and misleading".

The document I seek is a copy of a letter from Mrs Helen Rowell to the Secretary of the Senate Economics Legislative Committee {or to Senator Gallagher} in which Mrs Rowell has corrected or clarified her response of a "reasonable number" to what should have in fact been "only one".

Further clarification may have included that the "Retail" fund that was ranked in the top quartile by fund performance was a small fund and would be unlikely to be recommended by financial planners employed or associated with the major banks, which was relevant to the context of the question asked by Senator Gallagher.

Yours faithfully,

Phillip Sweeney