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RARSA Interim News

PRESIDENTS COMMENTS ON INDEXATION OF MILITARY PENSIONS

The Indexation of military and other Commonwealth superannuation pensions is an ongoing bone of contention for many of our members.

In August the Federal Government endorsed all four recommendations of the Matthews Review of indexation of military and other Commonwealth superannuation pensions.  This means that 63,000 military superannuation pensioners will remain disadvantaged as their DFRDB pension remains indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) - whereas Age and other welfare pensions are indexed at a higher rate (the greatest of CPI or the new Pensioner & Beneficiary Living Cost Index (PBLCI) or Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTAWE)).

 Meanwhile, pre-2004 MP and certain judicial superannuation pensions are very generously indexed to the salaries of serving MPs. That’s clearly unfair and discriminatory.

 In the period 1989 to 2008 military superannuation pensions rose by 68%, Age pensions rose by 110% and those of retired MPs rose by 131%!

This decision by the Government is unjust and unfair and we need to drive a campaign leading into the next Federal Government election to ensure that a fair, equitable and reasonable indexation method that includes the CPI together with an outlay based living cost index (PBLCI) and with reference to a wages based index such as MTAWE.

The RAR Association in conjunction with the Defence Welfare Association of Australia will be conduction meetings with the key stakeholders from other ESO’s in South Australia to initiate an appropriate national course of action. The RSL has stated its position at a national level and is not inclined to assist therefore we have no alternative than to go it alone.

Michael von Berg

President

Web Administrators News

It’s been a long road but I am now confident that we have the incidents that have been causing us problems behind us and we can now have a working and useful Website to further the aims of the Royal Australian Regiment Association SA

I have often heard former members of the Regiment say; I'd like to belong but I don’t have the time to commit any assistance. Well now you can, thanks to modern technology. All you have to do is to log into www.rarsa.org.au and register. You can instantly see what is going on within your association by reading the many articles written by members. You can then participate in the running of the association by posting comments or enter into dialog with other members. To allow you to do so, I have set up a program within the website which you can use as a personal blog. It is easy to use and a great communication tool. To watch a video which explains exactly what a Blog means and it’s usage, click on the following URL  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI