Page 2623 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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Another important function of the Public Trustee is to manage the Greater Good Foundation, Canberra’s public charitable foundation, which enables people to create their own tax-effective charitable funds in a low-cost, tax-effective manner. Lady Helen Deane is the foundation’s patron, and I acknowledge the Hon Margaret Reid, former senator for the ACT and former President of the Senate, who was the foundation’s inaugural patron. Our Wellness Foundation, which we talked about last night in the statement about Moira Lye, also came under the auspices of that foundation prior to it being the Canberra Hospital Foundation. At the end of the 2012-13 financial year, the Greater Good Foundation managed more than $11 million over 63 charitable funds, and during that year it distributed more than $500,000 for the work of those funds.
The last year or so has not been smooth sailing for the Public Trustee with allegations of fraud and mismanagement of powers of attorney. I make no comment on the former, as it remains the subject of a police investigation. I have no doubt these matters will all be dealt with appropriately in accordance with the generally excellent culture and work ethic that exists within the office. I thank the Public Trustee for its commitment to the important work it does in our community.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Superannuation Provision Account—
Schedule 1A, Part 1.19—$198,209,000 (capital injection), totalling $198,209,000.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.48): The superannuation provision account is a very important part of the ACT budget, holding the superannuation for our public service. I refer to the table on page 3 of budget paper 3 where the superannuation return adjustment is added to give us the headline “net operating balance”. For the 2013-14 year, that was to return $75.8 million. But reading from the Treasurer’s consolidated report for the day, the $75.8 million year-to-date actual is only $45.4 million, a variation of some $30.3 million. As the Treasurer said as he tabled these results, they are yet to be finalised and, no doubt, we will see some movement there. But it shows how with just a single line adjustment in the budget papers there can be great variance.
For the 2014-15 budget, the return adjustment leaps 50 per cent on the previous year to $113 million. In the following year, 2015-16, it grows by nine per cent, and then in 2016-17 and 2017-18 it returns to a more standard 7.5 per cent. The problem for the Treasurer is that the $113 million expected this financial year based on the current return is perhaps looking a bit shaky. But superannuation returns and the market being what they are, we will have to wait until that day in September when the audited accounts arrive and we get the final figure. But it shows that if we are relying on a large superannuation return adjustment to get the budget back into the black, it could well be a perilous path.
There was some particularly interesting discussion during estimates, particularly with Mr McAuliffe and Ms Doran giving, as always, their excellent answers to questions for those mere mortals amongst us who do not follow the market. There were some interesting admissions that some of the members of the estimates committee do not
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