ComSuper & Defence Pension

This is about the ongoing campaign for fairer indexation for ComSuper and Defence force pensions. The issue affects almost 350,000 senior Australians whose average pension is less than the married rate of Age Pension of just under $25,000. These are senior Australians living in every State and Territory.

Please see the full background of this issue on our Campaign background for Pension Index post.

We will be posting updates to this campaign here, so please subscribe to the campaign news feed, and contribute to the comments of any posts of interest so we can see your feedback and respond.

If you have a general letter to send, please email it to us at constance.larmour at aph.gov.au and we would like to publish letters received online to help the campaign move forward, so please let us know if you don’t want your letter published.

We look forward to your ongoing support in helping drive this issue forward.

Senator Kate Lundy

Other information on this topic can be found on the Superannuated Commonwealth Officers’ Association (SCOA) website, or the Defence Force Welfare Association (DFWA) website.

Retirees point finger at index

November 18, 2009 | By Pia Waugh | Also posted in Press Clippings | Comments (0)

PSNews article
Over 500 Commonwealth superannuants attended a public meeting in Canberra recently to address pension indexation arrangements in Australian Government Civilian and Military Superannuation Schemes.
ACT Senators Kate Lundy (Labor) and Gary Humphries (Liberal) addressed the meeting, giving their views on Trevor Matthews’ review into superannuation indexation for APS and military employees.
Both Senators criticised the Matthews [...]

Address to Canberra Public Meeting

November 11, 2009 | By Kate Lundy | Also posted in Blog | Tagged Canberra, super | Comments (0)

Following the public meeting on Monday, I wanted to post the notes from my presentation for your reference:
(Check against delivery) I want to thank the SCOA (Superannuated Commonwealth Officers’ Association) executive committee and to DFWA (Defence Force Welfare Association) for inviting me to talk and to listen to you. I am representing the Government here [...]

Response from Minister Tanner to our letter re: Matthews Reveiw

November 9, 2009 | By Kate Lundy | Tagged Canberra, super | Comments (8)

Please find below a link to a scan of the letter I received from Minister Tanner in response to the letter I sent in September along with my colleagues Mike Kelly, Annette Ellis and Bob McMullan.
Letter from Minister Tanner – 26th Oct 2009
Obviously we are disappointed with the response however the Minister has agreed to [...]

Senate Estimates Committee

October 27, 2009 | By Kate Lundy | Tagged super | Comments (0)

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 [...]

New article: Labor MPs lashout over PS super

September 28, 2009 | By Pia Waugh | Also posted in Press Clippings | Tagged sup | Comments (0)

Article in the Canberra Times, by Danielle Cronin – 26/09/2009
In an extraordinary move, two parliamentary secretaries and two backbenchers have condemned their Government’s rejection of a plan to improve superannuation for retired bureaucrats and defence personnel.
The decision affects about 300,000 people including about 50,000 in the Canberra region and has attracted strong criticism from Mike [...]

Letter to Minister Tanner about Comsuper

September 15, 2009 | By Kate Lundy | Tagged super | Comments (21)

Here is the joint letter from myself, Mike Kelly, Annette Ellis and Bob McMullan to Minister Tanner regarding our concerns about the Government’s decision to accept the Matthews Review recommendations.
This letter to the Minister is based on lots of discussions and having had the opportunity to absorb many views raised in the blog. As you [...]

Developing a new direction for the campaign

September 7, 2009 | By Kate Lundy | Tagged government | Comments (37)

Following public comments expressing my disappointment and reflecting on the depth of your anger and frustration, I have been reading up on the Matthews review and like many of you, thinking about where to next with the campaign. I will be posting my thoughts on this in the next few days. At that point I [...]

Retired public servants continue super campaign

August 25, 2009 | By Pia Waugh | Also posted in Press Clippings | Comments (0)

Retired Commonwealth public servants have vowed to start a new campaign to have their superannuation payments linked to average weekly earnings.
There has been a long-running campaign to change the indexation for superannuation from the consumer price index (CPI) to average weekly earnings.
But after commissioning a report on the issue the Federal Government has rejected the [...]

Disappointing announcement on the Matthews Report

August 21, 2009 | By Kate Lundy | Comments (26)

The Matthews Report and the initial Government response to the report were released at 2 p.m. today by Minister Lindsay Tanner’s office. Of course, like SCOA and the Defence Welfare organisations, I am devastated that, contrary to our hopes and expectations, Mr Matthews concluded that he had “not found that there is a case for [...]

Tanner has Comsuper & Defence pensions

July 16, 2009 | By Kate Lundy | Tagged government, Kevin Rudd, super | Comments (4)

Following the blog discussion, I have double checked the administrative arrangements for public sector superannuation, and the Federal Minister responsible.
It is definitely Minister for Finance, Lindsay Tanner.
Please note that while the responsibility for Superannuation is now with Minister Bowen, Comsuper and Defence Super has been moved to the Finance portfolio. This is a specific change [...]