Sent:	Tuesday, 30 January 2001 11:31 AM
To:	super.sen@aph.gov.au
Subject:	Indexation of CSS and PSS

The Secretary
Senate Select Committee on Superannuation
and Financial Services
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

I would be most grateful if the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation
and Financial Services could take the following points into account in its
consideration of this matter.

The two superannuation schemes for Commonwealth public servants (CSS and
PSS) are indexed by the CPI.  Unlike the Aged pension and the superannuation
scheme for parliamentarians, indexation does not take into account increases
in wages and productivity gains.  The rationale for using one method for
public servants and another significantly more beneficial method for
parliamentarians should be investigated.  This situation is totally
inequitable and discriminatory against Commonwealth public servants.

Further intensifying this discrimination, indexation for CSS and PSS
pensions is at least a year retrospective.  When the GST was introduced on
July 1 2000, Aged pensions were increased by 4% as compensation for the
anticipated inflation due to the GST.  Those on CSS/PSS pensions received no
adjustment and will have to wait until 1 July 2001 for any adjustment at
all.

The CPI is quite an inappropriate method of indexation for CSS/PSS retirees.
The CPI relates to price movements in many items (eg mortgages), which are
irrelevant to this age group.  It totally undermines any notion of
maintaining the real value of pensions; this is the entitlement that
contributors understood to be the key benefit on which these schemes were
based

An indexed pension is just as much an entitlement for public servants as it
is for parliamentarians.  It must, however, be based on a realistic and
equitable method of preserving the real value unfunded component of the
employer benefit.

I would like to register my concern about the sincerity of the Committee in
conducting this inquiry.  Firstly, the publicity seems to have been
specifically designed to restrict awareness of the opportunity to make
submissions among the group that is most effected - that is current retirees
and current contributors who are residents of Canberra.  This would be a
significant group whose rights have also been restricted by the timing of
the lodgment of submissions - at the end of the summer holiday period.  It
is almost as if the Committee wanted to be able to shelve the inquiry due to
lack of interest.  I am sure this is not the case, but it is clear this
aspect could have been handled better.

Name :Gwenda M Bramley

Tel. no.: (02) 6286 4670

Postal Address : 65 Gouger St, TORRENS   ACT 2607

Date : 30 Jan 2001