Paltry Superannuation Pension CPI Increase

3 Jul 2013

Military superannuants and their families are angered by their letter advice from the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation that their Superannuation payment will increase by 0.6% being the six monthly CPI indexation increase. For the average superannuation retirement pay of 25,000 pa that amounts to a gross fortnightly increase payment of $5.77 before tax.  

Our Fair Go Campaign seeks restoration of a compulsory condition of service that the military would contribute to their superannuation scheme that would be indexed to maintain its purchasing power. The indexation method adopted was CPI because that applied to other Commonwealt employees and welfare income support recipients. In the late 1980s the nexus of CPI with wages was broken by the Wages Accords. After extensive lobbying by welfare groups to restore the purchasing power maintenance indexation principle, the Government legislated the change in 1997 for the welfare recipients only to include a wages indexation factor to the CPI  whichever was the greater. Military and commonwealth superannuants were excluded and remained on CPI. A further adjustment to welfare reciepients indexation was made by the Government in 2009 which increased the wages % component and added a futher factor PBLCI to the CPI whichever was the greater. We remained pegged to the CPI. This is the same indexation method applied to the Newstart allowance, so are we being treated by this Government as unemployed?

We want the same indexation percentage increase that is applied to the Age Pension because that is the standard the Government has adopted to maintain the payments purchasing power.

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