Hansard debates

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (16:05): I would be happy to forgo some of my time for a little bit more story time from the member for Melton about the ambulance services in the 1980s. I have got a tale or two to tell about my uncle, who was also a paramedic in the 1980s. We will get to that, though, as I contribute to the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. This has been a wideranging and lengthy debate. The bill proposes a number of changes to the governance and administration of the Emergency Services Superannuation Scheme and the State Superannuation Fund; I really have a hard time getting my mouth around that. The bill makes seven key amendments, ranging from board composition and nomination processes to adjustments to how and when contributors can make changes to their superannuation settings.

Superannuation can be quite complex, obviously. We heard the member for Euroa talk about some impositions on some self-managed super funds with regard to taxes, land tax and so forth. This bill may seem technical, but it does have real-world impacts – everything we do in this place does – particularly in regional communities like Mildura where public sector and emergency workers are essential services. Our emergency service workers are the backbone of our community. We have got many emergency services personnel in Mildura, with a Fire Rescue Victoria station, station 72. There are our vast CFA brigades throughout district 18 going right through the Mallee, which I am sure you are familiar with, Acting Speaker Lambert. There are paramedics and our police. We do not have enough personnel, I might just add. I think there are around 50 current vacancies within the Mildura police district, with several stations not being able to be manned in major centres like Red Cliffs and Merbein on the periphery of Mildura, which is a real concern.

We heard the member for Melton refer to his involvement with this scheme since the 1980s. One of my uncles, who was also a paramedic through the 1980s, is one of the beneficiaries of this scheme, and he started his paramedic career in Swan Hill. It seems as though the fashion for paramedics is also starting to return. He had quite the moustache when he started, and it seems that quite a few paramedics in Mildura have brought that back, which is alarming to say the very least. He ended up working his way up to be quite high up in Ambulance Victoria, finishing his career a few years ago in Bendigo, and has since been sauntering around drinking red wine and enjoying his life, so he was quite the beneficiary of this scheme. However, when we are talking about the futures of paramedics and emergency services, public sector personnel like Uncle Butch, their retirement security should give peace of mind, as superannuation should give peace of mind to everyone. But again, with things like land tax and self-managed super funds being taxed to the nth degree, it is hard to find that security now.

We also have to be careful here. The bill provides a 90 per cent superable salary policy for executive officers and contract employees who are members of the Emergency Services Superannuation Scheme, and on the surface this will bring some clarity and consistency to how super is calculated for certain employees. But we need to be careful that we are not creating two tiers of retirement outcomes within the same sort of workforce, one for executives and another for rank-and-file workers. In areas – in fact in most areas, but I will speak on behalf of my electorate, which is what I know best – it is not the executives who are carrying the day-to-day burdens in a crisis; it is the frontline workers, as well as the CFA volunteers, and they are not eligible for this scheme. They are volunteers; they are not paid firefighters, but again they are the backbone of regional and rural Victoria. They are the ones out there fighting the fires, and soon they will also be the ones paying this emergency services volunteers tax – fair and equitable? I would think not, you would have to agree, Acting Speaker Lambert. But they do cover massive areas across Sunraysia and the Mallee. Victoria Police members, like I have said before, respond to emergencies most of the time with very, very limited backup, if any at all. These are the people we do need to support most.

Secondly, the bill will allow contributors to the Emergency Services Superannuation Scheme to change their contribution rate more frequently, from once to twice a year, which also is a practical improvement. Life circumstances change, and in regional communities, employment is often more variable. People move between roles, having to upfill positions that they may never be permanently appointed to. We see that with Ambulance Victoria members at the moment and have done so for years. People move between those roles, and they take on additional family responsibilities because of the lack of child care. These are things that need to be considered. Giving workers more flexibility is always a positive step, but these could be mitigated by some other commonsense movements in other policy areas. Of course they could be. Like I said, everything we do in here has real-world consequences on the ground.

The thing that we have heard a lot of speakers on this side of the house raise concerns about is the fact that this bill abolishes the requirement for members of the State Superannuation Fund to elect their representatives and instead proposes that board members be nominated by a union. I believe in democracy and transparency, and those should be the cornerstones of good governance, especially when we are talking about people’s super and ultimately their future. In Mildura many public servants – retired nurses, teachers, police officers and paramedics – are members of the State Superannuation Fund, and they should have a right to elect a representative to advocate for their interests. Those interests should not be quietly removed by an amendment in here. These decisions will affect the long-term financial future of these real people who have spent 30 or 40 years working for their community and contributing to a fund that they have trusted to do the right thing by them. We owe them a voice, particularly our nurses. My mother-in-law was a nurse in Victoria for 30 years and has since retired. It is also a concern for her because she does not subscribe to the union movement, which is interesting. These are the people that I tend to listen to when considering all sides because, Acting Speaker Lambert, you would know as well as I do that it does not matter how flat you make a pancake, there are always two sides, and those two sides should be listened to. That is a quote from the great Dr Phil.

Superannuation is complicated enough without changing the rules quietly from under people. There is already systemic disadvantage when it comes to retirement outcomes in regional Victoria. People have interrupted careers. Like I said, they need to take time off from their careers due to lack of child care and for other reasons. There are fewer opportunities to accrue super consistently. These are just some of those disadvantages. But we want to make sure that this bill is not just about streamlining administration. Everything we do in here should be about strengthening trust. But that is seldom the case, it seems.

While there are some practical improvements in this legislation, particularly with flexibility and compassion for contributors and their families, I do urge the government to tread very carefully when it comes to governance, because as we know, when you remove elected representation and concentrate decision-making by taking that democracy and transparency away from members, you risk undermining trust in a system that has already failed too many. We need policy that reflects how people actually live and work in the real world and in regional and rural Victoria. I know I say this until my lips bleed in this place, but that is my job. While the intent of this bill in some cases is practical and flexible, I urge the government to ensure that regional workers like those in my community of Mildura are heard, respected and protected in the decisions that shape their future.