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 [...]
ComSuper & Defence Pension
New article: Labor MPs lashout over PS super
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 [...]
Letter to Minister Tanner about Comsuper
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 [...]
Developing a new direction for the campaign
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
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 [...]
Disappointing announcement on the Matthews Report
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
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 [...]
Have your say: ComSuper and Defence Pensions
Please add your ideas, suggestions and any relevant web links to the comments below. We will respond to your comments on this page, as will other interested parties. Please note, that unless comments you read here are clearly marked as being staff from the office of Senator Lundy, then the comments are being made by [...]
What will fair indexation cost
The first year’s gross cost of $42 million, which will compound, is a little more than one tenth of one per cent of the 2007/08 budget surplus. There will be indisputable clawback of approximately 40% due to increased income tax and GST collections and a reduction in Age Pension expenditure. Due to their low superannuation [...]
The Matthews Report
On 26 June 2008 the Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law, Senator the Hon Nick Sherry, announced the implementation of the 2007 ALP election commitment to review the indexation arrangements for Australian Government superannuation pensions. This review was necessary because the Howard Government and the Department of Finance would not make available relevant actuarial costings. [...]
