Page 2861 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 22 November 1989
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There have been comments from time to time in the other house as to whether the Federal Government can exert the control it apparently wishes to exert. I refer particularly to comments by Senator Button on the investment policies and practices of the superannuation fund investment trust. There have been comments and speculation as to whether overseas investments and a range of portfolio investments are those which a centrally managed economy can deal with when you come to terms with the enormous size of the superannuation fund investment trust, a very well managed and dynamic trust, and a trust that has been returning, for example, over the last five years an average performance rate of 19 per cent per annum. That is a brilliant percentage return, reduced net in the hands of superannuants and other public servants to a figure of somewhere between 11 and 16 per cent over the years.
There have been comparisons made, and I recall being shouted down at the time in asking that we look carefully at this situation. It has very important financial implications for the ACT economy. It provides the Treasurer with the capacity to, at the very least, coordinate through the good offices of SFIT a range of investments in the ACT itself matching, hopefully, the level of equity that notionally ACT public servants have acquired, will acquire and will contribute to.
I believe that, from a business management point of view, the Government needs to link this issue with proposals to have approved annuity schemes - particularly in this public service city, declining though it is, but still with a very large public sector - so that superannuants and retirees leave their funds in the Territory and achieve taxation savings as a result.
Further, and more importantly, as Professor Warren Hogan of the University of Sydney has long requested, Ms Treasurer, we have the opportunity of working with the Federal Government for once in ensuring that there is less of a demand on social security age pension requirements when superannuants have blown their retirement funds. There could be tax incentives for superannuants not to blow their nest egg, but simply to have a tax system that gives them more than the pension would and therefore they would have the incentive to retain their funds and go on with it.
There are other interests the Rally has in the ACT corporate management area, particularly in relation to the level of the public service in the ACT, but again that is an extremely difficult subject. There has not been a full audit or statement as to the staffing situation, the appointments that are going on, the areas of enterprise, particularly areas such as parks and gardens, where there may be some interaction, as we have noted recently, with the private sector. The Rally looks forward to a definitive statement at an early stage from the Treasurer
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