BILLIONAIRE Gina Rinehart has joined corporate leaders and former military chiefs in pushing for an overhaul of the way that defence pensions are indexed, placing the federal government under renewed pressure to improve the financial entitlements of retired service personnel.
Ms Rinehart's name is prominent on a statement issued by the Alliance of Defence Service Organisations' Fair Go campaign, which urges the leaders of the three major political parties to support changes to bring indexation of military superannuation pensions into line with the age pension, which, since 2009, has been adjusted twice yearly to keep pace with the cost of living.
Where age pensions are pegged to a sophisticated formula that takes account of average earnings, cost of living and inflation, military pensions are pegged to inflation only. The peak welfare organisation for the armed services estimates that as a result of the discrepancy, there is a growing super gap between retired defence personnel and other workers.
Ms Rinehart put her name to the statement along with retired chiefs of the navy, army and air force, other corporate leaders and foreign minister in the Howard government Alexander Downer.
Former navy chief David Shackleton said the value of military pensions had diminished in real terms and "a lot of folk who have done a lot of things for this country are effectively being discriminated against".
"It wouldn't be difficult to be extremely cynical about politicians who talk about fairness, equity and doing the right thing -- and sometimes are quite pleased to stand next to soldiers when they have got their medals on -- and don't actually follow up with actions," Mr Shackleton told The Australian.
"This is a significant omission and they need to fix it."
Former army chief Peter Leahy said retired Defence personnel had become frustrated by the promises made by politicians and their failure to deliver.
A private member's bill to change the method of indexation introduced by Liberal senator Michael Ronaldson was last year voted down by Labor, the Greens and Nick Xenophon.
"Leadership is about looking after others before yourself and in this case, the politicians are missing in action," Mr Leahy said.
Mr Leahy took aim at the federal government's Special Minister of State, Gary Gray, who last week defended the current pension arrangements. Mr Gray told Perth Radio 6PR: "The reason we don't do it the other way is simply based on cost. We signed up to an arrangement and we will honour that arrangement."
The government estimates that adopting age-pension indexation for Defence pensions would cost $1.7 billion over the forward estimates of the federal budget.
Retired Air Vice Marshall Peter Criss, one of the organisers of the Fair Go campaign, said the indexation changes were needed to protect recipients of the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefit Scheme introduced by the Whitlam government and its replacement, the Military Superannuation Benefit Scheme, which was introduced in 1991.
and tagged with Indexation, Superannuation, pensions, Fair Go
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