Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to add my voice to the issue of military superannuation pensions, which is an issue that has been hotly debated in this chamber in recent days and one which many of my constituents from the veterans community of Mitchell have visited me on and raise with me regularly.

I want to acknowledge that defence service is unique and I think it was a poor outcome of the Henry review of taxation which viewed defence service as just another form of Commonwealth employment. I think there is a unique nature to service in the defence forces and I do not think it is appropriate to accept that it is just the same as any other form of employment by the Commonwealth government.

I want to thank my constituents for raising with me matters that apply to military superannuation. Those constituents have been very detailed in their submissions and analysis of how successive governments have failed to act on this important issue. I accept that it is one of the biggest issues affecting the veterans community at the moment.

I also want to acknowledge the motion moved by the member for Lyne about the military superannuation pension and the move to index it twice annually by the greatest divider of either the consumer price index, the pensioner beneficiary living cost index or male total average weekly earnings. While this may not be a motion that was supported by both sides of the House, I know that this issue is going to be an ongoing concern for veterans for some time.

I think that the government, unashamedly, at the last election promised veterans that there would be action in relation to this. Of course, it is yet another broken promise for the veterans community that we have seen. It does seem to me that there is a lot of money for all sorts of projects and all sorts of worthy causes around the country, yet money is being wasted in so many programs. The primary role of government, of course, is the defence of the nation, and looking after men and women who have chosen to serve on an ongoing basis is something that we ought to do first and something that we ought to consider before other important and worthy causes because we have asked those men and women to do something very important and sacrifice something on our behalf.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I consider military service as the highest form of service to the federal government. There is a strong case for action on military superannuation and pensions going forward. If you look at the reviews that have been conducted, such as the Matthews review, which came to the conclusion that there was no need to change the indexation method for military superannuation, or the Podger review, which has been well mentioned in this place, it does appear that superannuation—of course one aspect of the total remuneration package awarded to ADF members—is something that should be looked at again and something that in the future we should consider very seriously.