Archive Article

Our Superannuation Fight

The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby has been fighting to get equal rights for gay men and lesbians in super for many years. We produced a discussion paper in 1996,

In 1998, we worked with Federal Member for Grayndler, Anthony Albanese, to develop a private member’s bill to fix the problem. If passed, the Superannuation (Entitlements of Same Sex Couples) Bill 2000 would have removed discrimination from federal legislation dealing with private super schemes. (Government super schemes would have to be amended separately due to limitations on what private members’ bills can do.)

1999 saw the Human Rights Commissioner, Chris Sidoti examine the issue of discrimination in government superannuation schemes and support equal rights for same sex couples. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Report found that current superannuation legislation contravenes at least 2 international treaties – the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the International Labor Organisation Convention on Discrimination (Employment and Occupation). It also examines the issues in more detail.

The Senate Select Committee on Superannuation and Financial Services examined Albanese's Bill and released its report in April 2000. The majority of the committee, made up of the Labor and Democrat Senators, supported the Bill. But despite the completely unprecedented number of submissions in favour of the Bill (over 1200) and the underwhelming opposition to it (only 5 submissions opposed it), the Government Senators on the Committee wrote a minority report opposing the Bill.

Since then, until the 2004 election campaign breakthrough, GLRL managed to get firm commitments to reform from the Democrats, Greens and ALP, but the Howard Government did not budge in opposing this moderate reform.