Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak to the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Amendment (Fair Indexation) Bill 2010. I will keep my comments very short today because I do want to see the second reading amendment dealt with. I would say two things. The first thing is: how can this chamber not finalise this matter today and give some certainty to those 30,000 people who are being screwed by a system that makes them a different person from an age pensioner and that makes them a different person from a service pensioner? How can that be fair? Having had one false start in relation to this bill, how can we walk out of here today and not have this matter finalised? This is about fairness. It is about equity.

I am afraid the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Minister Wong, did not say one single thing about this bill today. She did not talk about the implications of this bill. The Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, Senator Feeney, will stand condemned by his own constituency for spitting in the eye of these superannuants. He has today spat in the eye of his own constituency. I will excuse Senator Wong to a certain extent; she is finance minister. Senator Feeney came in here today and spat in the eye of his constituency. When we walk out of here today, as we will, not having finalised this matter, it will be a great shame for this chamber. We know that the Australian Greens support this indexation bill, we know that Senator Fielding supports this indexation bill and I suspect that Senator Xenophon is more inclined to support the equity in this bill, yet we are walking out of here today without a decision.

The decision is an easy one. Let us give these people the same rights that age pensioners have. Let us give these people the same rights that service pensioners have. It is not rocket science; it is simple. There will be a lot of people listening today who will say, ‘Why is this not being dealt with?’ We have provided offsets. The coalition provided offsets before the last election. That has been reinforced today. I will talk about this because I know what the numbers are and I know that we will not get this dealt with today. It is a disgrace.

11:44:28

Minister Wong quotes the Government Actuary. Minister Wong, it might be a surprise to you that I actually had this information before you sent it to me and I also had some information sent to Minister Snowdon where the same thing was identified. The Actuary made it quite clear, and I will quote these figures, Senator Wong, because you refused to do so in your answer the other day and indeed in your letter to me. I will read it and I hope that Senator Brown, Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding are listening to this and look at what the Actuary said. The Actuary said: ‘Fiscal balance figures are used for accrual accounting purposes. They are also mandatory for cabinet submissions. However, great care should be exercised when using fiscal balance figures for decision-making purposes, particularly in the area of unfunded superannuation arrangements. It is important to note there is no direct relationship between the fiscal balance results and the total cost of the benefit improvement other than in the first year of the projection.’ So the $1.7 billion figure has been blown out of the water.

If I go over the page, Mr Burt, the Actuary, said—