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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1865 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
superannuation liabilities needed to be held for a long time, potentially for the whole working life of a person employed by the ACT government. The committee was concerned that the greater the amount held in the superannuation fund, the greater the temptation for future governments to draw on the fund to meet short-term financial demands. It is therefore important to ensure that funds dedicated to meet long-term liabilities are still available when the time comes for those liabilities to be paid out.
I am happy to support this bill. I will have one minor amendment, which I will talk about in the detail stage.
MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (8.39), in reply: I welcome the support of members for this important provision to ensure that the territory's superannuation provisions store, if you like, is guaranteed and over time built up. The government has made it very clear that we believe that the temptation to use accumulated superannuation for a variety of things is very great for governments that have a need for cash and see considerable amounts of cash building up in various committed accounts or funds.
Yesterday at the National Press Club someone from the Canberra Times asked a question of Mrs Carnell about the dangers of superannuation funds being used to fund WA Inc. types of proposals. It is true that governments short of money look covetously at these huge amounts of money built up in superannuation accounts. Whatever the weakness of such governments in such circumstances, it should not be the case that as a community we allow that investment in the necessary obligations, liabilities, of our community into the future to be squandered. Therefore, the legislation before the house protects superannuation paid into that account over the years.
As members know, in the course of this financial year, we have injected, $300 million into the superannuation provision account through the budget for this financial year, and we have reinforced the managed nature of this exercise by announcing the appointment of a new Finance and Investment Advisory Board to, among other things, supervise the investment program of the superannuation fund. The 2000-01 budget also produces other measures to protect the ACT's future capacity to meet superannuation liabilities.
The additional $120 million over the next four years from the recurrent budget adds further to that total. The amount, with the $300 million added to it for this financial year, brings the total of our superannuation account to about $700 million, and there will be more to add to that if an equalisation payment is made in respect of the joint venture between ACTEW and AGL. That will mean a significant step towards protecting the ACT's capacity to meet superannuation.
As Mr Quinlan has pointed out, the Select Committee on the Territory's Superannuation Commitments recommended this course of action. I see that Mr Quinlan claims credit for the idea. Whatever the parentage of this idea, it is clear that it does need to happen. We can debate who has the greater temptation to want to raid the superannuation account.
Ms Carnell: Victorian Labor has shown-
MR HUMPHRIES
: Mrs Carnell, we should not make reference to the Victorian Labor government or the Western Australian Labor government. That would be churlish. We
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