At the Senate Estimates Committee hearing on Tuesday 20 October, Senator Sherry represented Minister for Fianance, Mr Tanner and answered questions from Senator Humphries on the Matthews Review. Referring to our letter (i.e. from Lundy/Kelly/McMullan/Ellis) to Minister Tanner, Senator Sherry said that the Minister had responded: in fact we have finally now received that response today.
The transcript of the Estimates hearing is here.
Superannuation and the Matthews report are covered at pages 43 to 47.
Department of Finance and Deregulation officers revealed that Mr Matthews had only two days of hearings in Canberra, that he was not paid to conduct the review, and that other costs of the review were met by the Department of Finance and Deregulation.
In terms of Recommendation 4 of the Matthews Report, Mr Tune, Secretary of the Department of Finance and Deregulation, stated that there is an index that is produced by the ABS which relates to self-funded retirees, but “we do not consider it as being a reliable index at this stage.”
I am looking forward to discussing the Minister’s response with my colleagues asap and we hope to have our meeting with the Minister soon. Minister Tanner’s letter to us goes further in claiming that “the PBLCI is not an index in relation to the living costs of superannuants. It has not been derived from the self-funded retiree ALCI, which was the index that Mr Matthews discussed in his report”.
I believe that this statement opens the door for continued dialogue aroudn the possibility for the development of an Analytical Living Cost Index (ALCI) which does focus on the changes in the living costs of superannuants. I also believe it is important to keep the door open on PBLCI as an interim measure.
Our campaign continues.
