STATUTES AMENDMENT AND REPEAL (SUPERANNUATION) BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's amendments.

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendments be agreed to.

The government concurs with the amendments; in fact, they are government amendments. I would like to speak briefly.

The CHAIR: That is helpful if we agree, if they are our amendments!

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN: I thought I would clarify that I am not at dispute with myself. The amendments are of some significance and what will ultimately flow from the first of the amendments, I think, will be of great benefit to low income earners. The first amendment to the bill has been moved at clause 13A to facilitate the introduction of the proposed new tax-exempt Public Sector Superannuation Scheme by 1 January 2013. This new fund is being introduced to ensure that employees of the state government, who are earning less than $37,000 per annum, will receive the new commonwealth Low Income Earners Government Superannuation Contribution. This commonwealth payment is not available to members of untaxed schemes such as the Triple S scheme.

In particular, the amendment provides a mechanism to ensure that, if a Triple S member elects to join the new taxed fund, the state government employer of that member will be required under section 21 of the Southern State Superannuation Act 2009 to contribute to that new fund only rather than to the Triple S scheme. The new tax fund operates under the same sphere as the Triple S scheme in respect of employer obligation under the Superannuation Guarantee Administration Act 1992, and we are now in the process of establishing this fund for low income earners employed by the state government.

The second amendment to the bill relates to the provisions dealing with the Electricity Industry Superannuation Scheme. The bill originally dealt with a proposal that a technical amendment be made to existing schedule 1B of the Superannuation Act 1988 to enable persons in receipt of a taxed source pension from the EISS scheme to be transferred to a tax fund administered by Super SA. As members may be aware, this was an issue of some concern to superannuants, and they have made representations to a large number of parliamentarians, including a large number in the House of Assembly.

On the basis of those representations, and the concern expressed, the government has agreed for a review to be undertaken into the benefit reduction formula, and a reference has been proposed to be sent to the Ombudsman to basically deal with the benefit reduction formula which reduced gross benefits of EISS members following this scheme's loss of constitutional protection and its consequential move into a taxed environment. That concludes my comments.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: This deals with the amendments from the upper house regarding the superannuation bill. The minister's office has provided the opposition with a briefing. The opposition agrees with the matter in relation to low paid workers and access to the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme or payment, and we will be supporting the relative amendment.

In relation to the amendments that deleted the Electricity Industry Superannuation Scheme, I thank the minister, as I did during the contribution in the original debate, for his assistance in relation to that matter. The members of the Electricity Industry Superannuation Scheme fund wanted those particular measures taken out until a potential investigation by the Ombudsman was completed. I think we are still awaiting the outcome of a vote in the other place on that particular matter, so the opposition agrees with the amendments.

Motion carried.