Government Announcement Regarding Administration Arrangements for Australian Government Superannuation Schemes
The Minister for Finance and Deregulation and the Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law today released a joint press statement in which they announced reforms to improve and consolidate governance and administration of Australian Government Superannuation Schemes, including the MSB, DFRB and DFRDB Schemes.
Central to the reforms will be the establishment of a new Board of trustees for the Military and civilian government superannuation schemes. In essence from 1 July 2010 the Boards of MilitarySuper, the DFRDB Authority and Aria (the trustee for the CSS, PSS and PSS Accumulation Schemes) will merge to form a single trustee Board. The new Board will be the trustee of the main civilian and military super schemes.
Importantly the Ministers’ statement provides an assurance that the reforms will not affect Members’ superannuation benefits in any way. Each scheme will retain its own legislative base and provisions.
Your Board will be working with Government to flesh out the details around implementation of the reforms. It is the Board’s intention to ensure that any new arrangements continue to recognise the unique nature of Military service.
In the meantime the MilitarySuper Board will continue to strive for the best possible fund performance in the current difficult financial crisis. Unit price as of today’s date in the Growth (default) option continues to be in positive territory. Indeed a recent SuperRatings survey ranked MilitarySuper’s Growth option as the No.1 Fund when comparing performance over financial year todate, 1, 3 and 5 year periods. This survey canvassed the performance of over 80 of Australia’s largest wholesale, retail and public sector superannuation funds.