Senior counsel assisting the royal commission Michael Hodge, QC, opened with questions around the transparency of super fund trustees, those responsible for acting in the best interests of members.

“What happens when we leave these trustees alone in the dark with our money?” Mr Hodge asked during his opening statement.

“Can they be trusted to do the right thing?”

He said it was important to protect Australians’ retirement savings and this partly involved understanding the entities that own or control the trustees and to what extent they act in ways that can be “detrimental to members.”

“Trustees are surrounded by temptation – to preference the interests of their sponsoring organisations, to act in the interests of other parts of their corporate group, to choose profit over the interests of members, to establish structures that consign to others the responsibility for the fund and thereby relieve the trustee of visibility of anything that might be troubling,” he said.

He also questioned whether the current regulatory system was adequate in protecting retirement savings.

National Australia Bank representatives and a former employee were the first to take the stand and testify this week, followed by witnesses from the country’s largest super fund, AustralianSuper, and from financial services company IOOF.

So far, the royal commission has heard evidence of misconduct and conduct that falls below community expectations.

More super industry stakeholders will take the stand next week, in what will be the second and final week of the royal commission’s superannuation hearings.

All up, it is the commission’s fifth round of hearings into the financial sector.