Page 5834 - Week 18 - Tuesday, 10 December 1991
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MR STEVENSON: Mr Humphries said that it depends on their salary. I grant, of course, that it depends on their salary. When people have done calculations for me, it is not surprising that we have taken a similar salary to what members in this Assembly are getting, at a similar average age level.
Mr Duby: And do you add a similar employer contribution?
MR STEVENSON: Mr Duby asks: Is there added a similar employee contribution? The answer to that is yes, there is.
Mr Duby: Employer contribution?
MR STEVENSON: Mr Duby talks about an employer contribution. It is obvious that most schemes have an employer contribution. What they do not have, at the end of the time, when anybody is going to be paid out, is an unlimited fund to dip into, with a fixed determination.
One of the other things that this Bill allows is a death and disability benefit. I am told that, if a member had to leave the Assembly after a relatively short period through death or disability, the sum would be $412,000.
Mr Moore: Their family would be protected.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Moore says that their families would be protected. I am certainly all for protecting families. However, once again it comes back to the amount of money contributed by the individual.
I have no disagreement whatsoever with superannuation as a general principle. Indeed, I think that the idea that the Commonwealth Government had in Australia some decades ago, of having a national welfare fund that everybody paid into at the rate of 7 per cent of their salary and that that would guarantee them in their retirement a very handsome pay-out indeed, was an excellent idea. I think it is unfortunate that the Commonwealth Government got their fingers on the money by a series of actions over a period of years. It involved both Liberal and Labor governments. They took the money and no longer did we have a national welfare fund.
Some of the people would remember - Dr Kinloch might remember - paying 7 per cent of salary into a national welfare fund.
Mr Connolly: This is absolute nonsense.
MR STEVENSON: Is it? It never happened in Australia?
Dr Kinloch: I do not know anything about it.
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