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

I want to talk about superannuation and I want to talk about the DFRDB and the DFRB indexation issue.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is item 44 on page 16 of the Notice Paper?

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

Yes, it is, Madam Acting Deputy President. I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Interestingly, on Monday or Tuesday sworn in at Government House was Minister Kelly, the member for Eden-Monaro. Minister Kelly is now in a position of responsibility and a position of influence. We all know that Minister Kelly and Minister Lundy wrote to former minister Lindsay Tanner in relation to doing something about fair indexation. They said to him that he had to do something about it, that the government had to do something about fair indexation. How is it that 57,500 Australian families who are DFRDB and DFRB recipients, those who have served this country, are treated differently to age and service pensioners? How is it that these people who have served our country are on the CPI indexation method only, an indexation method that for the last 12 years has been decided by this government and previous governments as not being an effective representation of the cost of living?

How can we possibly justify treating those military families on those two superannuation schemes differently to age pensioners? How is it that this nation can stand by and allow a group of men and women and their families who have served this nation to be treated so appallingly? As you well know, Madam Acting Deputy President, I have endeavoured in this very chamber with a fair indexation bill several years ago now to have this Senate debate and pass a bill for fairness, a bill that recognises the uniqueness of military service, a bill that recognises the contribution of military men and women to this country. And this nation continues to stand by and treat these families appallingly. No-one can justify to me how it is that you can index the superannuation payments of these men and women differently to the aged pension. The CPI is no longer a representative mix of the cost of living index. It has not been now for over a decade.

The coalition tried in this chamber to bring fairness to those men and women and their families, and in a dark day in the Senate's history this chamber refused to provide the appropriate level of relief that these men and women are owed. I make it quite clear again that the coalition is committed to addressing this inequity, and we are circumspect in relation to what promises we can make given the diabolical financial situation left by this government. This is a firm commitment, an irreconcilable commitment, to those families that in the first budget of an Abbott government we will ensure that that indexation is achieved. I throw the challenge out to all Labor senators and to all Labor members in the other place to look at their conscience and see whether they can stand by and let this continue. And they cannot. If their consciences are searched, they will know it is wrong.

I throw out a challenge to Minister Kelly. He is the one who wrote to then Minister Tanner and said 'This is unfair' and 'Do something about it'. But where has Minister Kelly been since that letter? Where has he been in enforcing the fairness that he demanded of then Minister Tanner? He is now a government minister, he is a minister of influence within this present government. If Minister Kelly is serious about his statement three years ago, he will demand that the Gillard government bring fairness to these military superannuants. If he does not, he stands utterly condemned.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.