EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1987 NO 62
ISSUED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER FOR FINANCE
SUPERANNUATION ACT 1976 - SUPERANNUATION (ELIGIBLE EMPLOYEES) REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
Section 168 of the Superannuation Act 1976 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing matters that the Act requires or permits to be prescribed, or that are necessary or convenient to be prescribed, for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
The Act provides a contributory superannuation scheme for Commonwealth employees. Persons eligible to contribute under the Act are referred to in the Act as “eligible employees”.
Sub-section 3(1) of the Act defines the term “eligible employee”. In accordance with paragraph (j) of the definition, the term does not include a person included in a prescribed class of persons. Thus, certain classes of employees may be excluded by regulation from becoming, or remaining, contributors. The classes of persons so excluded are prescribed in the Superannuation (Eligible Employees) Regulations (the Regulations).
Persons appointed as officers or engaged as employees of the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation are either required or eligible to be eligible employees for the purposes of the Act because the Corporation is an approved authority for the purposes of the Act. Full-time members of the Board (Directors) of the Corporation may also be eligible employees.
The Corporation introduced a superannuation scheme for its Directors, officers and employees with effect from 1 March 1987. It is intended that the following arrangements apply as a consequence of the introduction of the Corporation superannuation scheme:
(a) those existing Directors, officers and employees of the Corporation who are eligible employees for the purposes of the Act are to have the option of:
(i) remaining eligible employees for the purposes of the Act; or
(ii) ceasing to be eligible employees for the purposes of the Act and becoming members of the Corporation superannuation scheme;
(b) those existing Directors, officers and employees of the Corporation who are not eligible employees for the purposes of the Act are to be excluded from becoming eligible employees while they are Directors, officers or employees of the Corporation; and
(c) persons appointed as Directors or officers, or engaged as employees, of the Corporation in the future are to be excluded from becoming, or remaining, eligible employees for the purposes of the Act while they are Directors, officers or employees of the Corporation,
Groups (b) and (c) are not to include persons:
(i) who are or become Directors, officers or employees of the Corporation while on leave without pay from employment by the Commonwealth or another approved authority for the purposes of the Act;
(ii) who are invalidity pensioners as defined in regulation 3 of the Regulations; or
(iii) to whom Division 2 or 3 of Part IV of the Public Service Act 1922 applies.
The existing paragraphs 4(a) and 4(aa) of the Regulations would operate to exclude from remaining eligible employees those in group (a) above who elect to become members of the Corporation superannuation scheme. Amendment of the Regulations is, however, necessary to exclude those in groups (b) and (c) above from becoming or remaining eligible employees.
The Statutory Rule makes the necessary amendments to the Regulations.
The amendments operate on and from the date of gazettal.