Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support not just the amendment that Senator Ronaldson is moving but the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Amendment (Fair Indexation) Bill 2010 as a whole, which is being presented by Senator Ronaldson to ensure that Australia attends to one of a number of serious omissions with respect to proper indexation of pensions of those who have served Australia, in a variety of ways, in what might loosely be described as public service.

It has been clear for some time that Australia has experienced a problem with the standard of living provided to those Australians who have been either public servants or members of the Defence Force in that it is not keeping pace with the standard of living provided to other Australians who are the beneficiaries of Australian govern­ment pensions. The pensions of, for example, aged pensioners—as is well known—are adjusted by a combination of factors, the greater of the consumer price index or the male total average weekly earnings. As a result, it is fair to say that pensions overall, such as age pensions, have kept pace quite appropriately with the level of rising prices and in many cases have exceeded those levels. What is also clear, however, is that those with fixed incomes based on other kinds of pensions—Commonwealth super­annu­ation pensions and various Defence retirement pensions—have not had the benefit of that adjustment. It is time that we as a nation took proper steps to respond to the expectation of those Australians that their living standards would be protected by virtue of their having been servants of the Com­monwealth.

This bill deals with the question of the indexation of the pensions of Australians who have served in certain forms of defence. It is appropriate that that indexation be considered—not as the entire and final answer to this issue because, as I indicated, there are other manifestations of this problem which are not addressed this bill but must be tackled in the longer term—in order to ensure that Australians do justice by those people who have served loyally and whose standard of living is not keeping pace with rising prices. I particularly look forward to hearing the contribution of the Australian Greens to this debate. I can recall this issue being one of extreme importance in the ACT context during the last federal election. I can recall that the Australian Greens made a sweeping promise that their support would go to the improvement of indexation arrange­ments for all retirees—all Australian government or defence retirees—at the higher standard of male average weekly earnings or the consumer price index. They solemnly maintained that this was a fair, appropriate and just thing to do. The bill before the Senate today, although it does not entirely achieve that objective, does take that objective an important step forward. I hope and expect that the Greens will be good to their word—particularly as it relates to the Australian Capital Territory electorate, where this was an issue of some considerable importance to a very significant proportion of the population—and that they will ensure that this legislation is passed.

It is important to ensure that the Australian government and the Australian parliament review these arrangements on a continuous basis. That has occurred, in a sense, through a number of inquires in this parliament. The Senate has conducted a number of inquiries into the question of indexation levels of Australian retirement pensions provided by the government. It has looked at this issue on numerous occasions, and on every occasion a Senate committee has addressed this issue it has come to the same view: that the consumer price index is not of itself a satisfactory measure of indexation for people in that position. Sadly, other reviews conducted outside the parliament, by people who have been commissioned to consider this question, have not come to the same conclusion. With all due respect to the minds that were applied to this issue outside the parliament, I think they have got it wrong and that the question of appropriate indexation is better addressed through Senate committees—which were often chaired by Senator Watson in previous parliaments—and other parliamentary committees.

I think it is important that we come to this issue afresh and begin to address the issue. It has remained unfinished business for such a long period of time before the parliament and particularly the Senate, which has focused on the issue very strongly. The amendments that Senator Ronaldson will move today will ensure that the legislation better focuses on that question. They deserve the serious and sympathetic attention of the Senate. We must not let this issue remain unaddressed for much longer. It is clearly a question that many people in our community depend on having answered in order to address what for them is a static or even declining standard of living. We simply cannot tolerate that to be the case. This legislation takes an important step in the direction of addressing that unfinished business, as I have called it, which does need to be tackled as soon as possible.