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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-05 Daily Xml
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PARLIAMENTARY SUPERANNUATION (REDUCTION OF PENSION) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (10:32): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Parliamentary Superannuation Act 1974. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (10:33): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This proposal I bring to the parliament today is in relation to parliamentary superannuation for those in the older pension schemes. In other words, I acknowledge that new members do not receive parliamentary superannuation in the way that most of us do. However, one of the things that we see in respect of retired members of parliament is their employment—or deployment—on various government boards in various positions, appointed by government ministers. Some people refer to this as 'the club'.

It does not really matter whether you are a member of Liberal or Labor: as long as you have been a loyal party member, after you leave this place you are a member of 'the club'. That means you are entitled to be appointed to various boards, whether it be the Housing Trust or the SACE board, or perhaps WorkCover or some other statutory corporation, and that means that retired members are therefore sometimes in receipt of a fairly lucrative income from the state of South Australia.

Indeed, there are some current board members—either retired parliamentarians or their associates—who earn in excess of $80,000 with their annual membership of boards, and so on. The Hon. Rob Lucas in January raised a small storm with his list of various Labor members who have been appointed in this manner—most of them in receipt of a handsome parliamentary pension. I will not go into the list and name them all; they have already been named in The Advertiser, anyway, on 7 January. Exactly the same story with different names could have been written 10 years ago except that they would have been Liberal MPs instead of Labor MPs.

One thing that Liberal and Labor do these days is that they make some token appointments from members of the opposite political persuasion, so that it cannot be said that it is all one way, and that stops some of the complaints about people getting on the gravy train after they leave parliament. We do find a couple of Liberal appointments by the current Labor government; and, no doubt, the next incoming Liberal government will appoint a couple of the Labor people. It does not really matter whether you are Liberal or Labor: you are in the club and you are eligible for these post-political appointments.

I want to do something about that. I think that those people already in receipt of our extravagant pension according to statute ought to have that pension reduced if they are one of the fortunate members of the club who gets appointed to one of these statutory positions and thereby gets paid by the state anyway. After all, does one really need one's $40,000 or $100,000 a year pension if one is earning $20,000, $40,000 or $80,000 from government appointments after leaving parliament? This is not an entirely novel suggestion. Section 19 of the Parliamentary Superannuation Act already stipulates that parliamentary pensions are to be reduced in certain circumstances, and perhaps the two most obvious ones are if the person becomes a judge or a member of the federal parliament.

In either of those cases the parliamentary pension payable, because of the member's service in the state parliament, is reduced by the amount earned in that other position, presumably to zero, because both those other positions are extremely well remunerated in any case. The bill I bring to the parliament today adds another set of prescribed officers or positions to section 19. As I said, section 19 is already a part of the Parliamentary Superannuation Act; it already provides for the reduction of pension in certain circumstances, and I am expanding those circumstances.

In particular, if members refer to clause 3 of the bill they will see that I seek to extend 'prescribed officers' to those people who are members of advisory bodies, those who occupy an office or position in a public sector agency, those who do contract work for public sector agencies, senior officials (such as chief executives of departments) and those other positions which are established under the law of the state, for example, ombudsmen, the DPP—whatever it might be. 'Public sector agency' in the context has a very broad meaning, and that is how I intend it to be. Clause 4 is simply a transitional provision to say that, as of the commencement of this legislation, those people who are currently in receipt of both their handsome parliamentary pension and the remuneration they receive from boards, and the like, would feel the impact of this legislation and thereby have their parliamentary pension reduced.

I am not suggesting that people should not be paid for service on statutory boards or in serving the state through being a chief executive of a department. All I am saying is that, if you get paid for doing the work in those positions, you do not need the parliamentary pension to that extent. It is to avoid double dipping. It is to stop people benefiting from both their extravagant parliamentary pension and the largesse which is provided from time to time by Labor or Liberal governments to mainly their own, sometimes opposition, ex-members of parliament. Therefore, I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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