Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

A major equivalent who retired at the beginning of 2010 after 20 years service, with retirement pay of $30,000 per annum, converted it to a lump sum of around $150,000 in exchange for an annual payment of $26,000. That is equivalent to the age pension. They are seen as the same. How can that be? What is the difference between an income support payment, the age pension, and a retirement benefit as part of a superannuation scheme? They are not equivalent. They are different. Yet we have got the shadow minister going round to RSL conferences and trying to give people the view that somehow or other these things are the same. That is misleading, it is wrong, it is confusing and it is designed to confuse. I can accept that people may think that they want a different indexation scheme. I can accept that. I am happy to have that discussion. But people think that somehow or other we are going to sit back here and accept the proposition that a retirement benefit scheme, a superannuation scheme, is to be seen as the same as an income support scheme. I think it is downright wrong.

An honourable member: Dishonest.

It is certainly dishonest. Let me just go to how these schemes currently operate. Let us put it in a proper context. Again, this is a superannuation scheme. It is superannuation, not income support. Understand this: over the period November 2007 to 1 January 2013, the salary for privates through to colonels in the ADF increased in excess of 19 per cent. From 1 January 2008 to 1 January 2013, a one-year shorter period, the comparable CPI increases for people on DFRB and DFRDB was 17 per cent. Are you guys trying to tell us that somehow or other these guys are not being treated fairly? I have already told you that your leader, from his own statements, has no idea what you are talking about. He says what is good for civilians is good for former Defence personnel. Well, these former Defence personnel are doing a damn sight better than their civilian counterparts—as they should.

Let us not be confused here. Trying to describe this superannuation scheme as an income support scheme, which is what the opposition is deliberately doing by confusing the two, is palpably dishonest, and I am sick to death of it. They have been out there in the veteran community, putting out misleading documents—documents which have emanated from the shadow minister's office and been sent to local members for distribution. We get them, so we know precisely what you are up to. You go out there deliberately misleading, effectively telling people lies, and you expect us not to respond. I have not responded until this day, but by God I am angry, because you have deliberately misled the veteran community. You have deliberately been dishonest to the veteran community. I do not think it is reasonable or fair for a person who wants to be the Minister for Veterans' Affairs to adopt that sort of behaviour. He should front up to the veteran community and explain to them the difference between a superannuation scheme and an income support scheme such as an age pension. But you will not, because I know what you are like. In any event, though, I know the truth, and people who are reasonable and who are prepared to assess this matter properly also know the truth. (Time expired)

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