On 20 May 2021, the FADT Reference Committee held its open hearing into DFRDB.
The hearing can still be viewed by clicking on this link:
Foreign Affairs Defence & Trade – 20/05/2021 08:50:00 – Parliament of Australia (aph.gov.au)
Testimony of each witness commences at:
09:07:15 – Ken Stone, Independent Advocate
09:41:30 – Herb Ellerbock, ADFRA
10:39:46 – Kel Ryan and Wyn Fowles, DFWA
11:05:48 – Defence and Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation
12:00:04 – The Commonwealth Ombudsman
Only 50% participation by the Committee members was a disappointment, as was the level of preparedness of the Senators who did participate.
The proposal put forward by DFWA is a real concern. It would provide the least benefit for the majority who have been retired the longest and the most benefit, albeit still only small, for the 900 odd members who have not yet retired and the relative few most recently retired.
If you support the DFWA proposal, please let us know. If not, let Kel Ryan know by emailing him at [email protected].
Predictably, Defence hid behind the Ombudsman’s Report, and CSC hid behind the DFRDB Act. Their view was, “the Act is what it is”.
The Ombudsman went to lengths to defend the criticism of his Report.
Supplementary Submissions
We put two Supplementary Submissions to the Committee which have been accepted. They can be viewed by clicking on these links:
Supplementary submission 1 Supplementary submission 2
Now we await the Committee’s Report.
Jim Hislop OAM
President
