Ms Press responded: “We wrote to the Maritime Union... about the conversations that they were having with the Maritime Super members.”

Contacted after the hearing, MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin hit out at the evidence.

“This is just arrant nonsense and misinformation driven by the federal government, and is quickly disproven by a letter to the union from ASIC confirming they’d looked into the matter and there would be no further action taken”

Mr Crumlin said the letter, sent by ASIC in September, said: “Please note, although ASIC has seen a copy of the correspondence that was provided to union members and does not have any further concerns to raise with you at this stage”

Earlier in the session, ASIC was grilled by Labor MP Julian Hill about letters sent by the retail and industry super funds to members informing them that they had failed the test. Mr Hill said he was concerned a letter that was supposed to be telling members of a fund failing a performance test was being used to promote the failed fund to members.

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“You can understand our [the committee’s] concern and confusion that funds that have had to do the walk of shame with their members are trying to dress that up into a beauty parade,” Mr Hill said.

Ms Press told the committee that while the law stated funds had to tell their members of their failure of the performance test, there was no law saying they couldn’t also include marketing material in those letters spruiking the benefits of the failed fund.

“There is no law that prevents them from including other information with the performance letter. Having said that, it does need to be fair and balanced,” she said.

“We are looking at all the communications that have been sent out by the 13 underperforming funds, and indeed, a number of other funds that almost failed a performance test to ensure there is not the kind of behaviour that you just talked about,” she added.

ASIC chair Joe Longo suggested the regulator’s review could potentially identity breaches of the law.

“There are a range of areas, as Commissioner Press alluded, where we are concerned to ensure that there isn’t misleading and deceptive conduct,” Mr Longo said.

The MUA’s Mr Crumlin said industry funds were under attack from the Coalition government.

“Coalition parliamentarians like Tim Wilson and Andrew Bragg are on a crusade against industry superannuation, trade unions and workers’ democratic rights in order to advantage their mates in banking.

“These blokes are wasting the time of the regulator and seeking to publicly intimidate unions who quite legitimately communicate with their membership about important issues affecting their superannuation”

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