It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. While this bill is largely administrative in its nature, it is going to ensure that ESSSuper can continue to provide that service to members that they deserve and reflect a more modern way that members interact with their super fund. The Emergency Services Superannuation Act 1986 was established specifically for emergency service workers and personnel, and these would include police officers, firefighters and ambulance workers. Because their career and their work was unique in its challenges and its risks, it was justified to tailor a superannuation scheme for them.

I have heard other contributions in this place, and I think across the house we acknowledge that our emergency service workers do an incredible job in our communities. As someone who deeply values community safety and the strength of our communities, I have immense respect for our emergency service men and women who serve in our communities, and their work is really, truly like no other. It is not only demanding in a physical capacity but courage is needed and emotional resilience. They need to make quick judgements and have an unwavering commitment to putting others first. Every day that they are met with these challenges they face some situations that many of us can probably never imagine. They rush towards danger rather than running the other way. They respond in a calm way to very traumatic events, and they do carry that weight of responsibility.

Because of this unique service to our state, we did recognise that it needed to be a tailored superannuation system and one that reflects the job but also maybe earlier retirement because they do face some of those extreme challenges, as I have outlined. The establishment of the Emergency Services Superannuation Board was not just really a bureaucratic decision; it was reflecting the respect and the responsibilities that we owe these individuals. In this place we talk a lot about legislation and bills and, like I have said, the administration of these bills, but it can be very personal. Changes that we make in this house do have a consequence or a benefit out in our communities, because every person who wears a uniform, whether it be police or fire, they have a family, they have a future and they have a story. We owe it to them to honour their service, not just with words but with structures that protect them.

Across the Bellarine recently there have been some quite dramatic events – tragic events – in our community, and these have been faced and dealt with by our emergency personnel. I just want to take the opportunity to thank them for the work that they do. Our local police across the Bellarine every day put themselves in harm’s way to protect and serve our communities, and we have deep gratitude and respect for that. We in this place as a government have made record investments in our police force, and we are funding more than 3600 new police men and women to keep Victorians safe. The other emergency services workers that I have recently been having conversations with were our local ambulance workers. The Premier and I visited the Ocean Grove branch only recently, and it was great to see the upgrades that they have had to their station but more importantly the conversations we were having about the job that they do, how they respond to our emergencies and the compassion that they have in the most challenging circumstances. Again, we have a profound gratitude to them for their service. This bill really does talk to the men and women who serve, like I have said, in police, ambulance and fire services, and they are the backbone of our community.

This bill will make quite a few changes, and I will just highlight a couple of those. This bill will change the spouse membership following a member’s death. Under the current arrangements following a death of a member the spouse would have up to three months to apply to become a member of that scheme. We can all imagine the trauma and the grief that someone is going through when a spouse passes away, so in light of that this bill will extend the period in which a non-member spouse following a death can apply to become a member of the emergency services superannuation plan scheme up to 12 months. This really has been introduced because there has been consultation and a lot of representation stating that this change would make a real difference to families, like I have said, given the trauma and the grief that families would be going through at the time. Given that connection that many emergency services families have with the with the super fund, it is reasonable, I think, to allow 12 months for a non-member spouse to decide on whether they would like to continue or join the plan.

I have heard other contributions in this place talking to the size of the board, and we are making changes in this bill. Currently there are six members of the board nominated by the minister and six members elected by the members of various superannuation schemes, and this bill is proposing that they reduce the board size from 12 to 10. This change is being made really to ensure an optimal decision-making body and that equal representation of employee and employers on the board. Emergency services superannuation involves quite a complex benefit structure, and a dedicated board really needs to have that knowledge and tailored oversight that reflects the unique needs of those members. Managing this large public fund on behalf of members does require quite specialised duties, and the board is legally and ethically responsible for acting in the best interests of its members and beneficiaries.

When I think about superannuation and connect it to politics, my first thoughts are with our former Prime Minister Paul Keating, and I think Keating alongside Bill Kelty – and others have mentioned this today – from the union movement are widely regarded as architects of our modern superannuation system, which certainly has become a cornerstone of our retirement planning in this country. The reforms were historic in nature, particularly that economic empowerment that has been provided to working Australians, and it really was a long-term vision of building superannuation that would build a national savings pool, really, to reduce that reliance on an age pension. Labor, being the architect of this, will always protect and strengthen our workers’ superannuation because we believe that workers should have that dignified retirement. It was interesting to read a little bit about the history, when I was doing research for this bill, and the accounts of Bill Kelty and Paul Keating in planning that superannuation. Even though they may have come from different angles or different takes, ultimately, from what I have read, they both had a position where they were trying to create economic growth. Keating would talk endlessly about needing to grow that economy pie rather than actually talking about how to divide it up. He said:

The people we represented can’t be looked after in a low-growth economy … Yes, a lot of wealthy people are going to do well … but we also think you put your arm out to pull people up behind you.

I think this sums up our Labor values very much, particularly within the context of superannuation.

In closing, our super is a really important foundation for working Australians. It ensures that people can retire with dignity, independence and security – particularly, in the case of this bill, our emergency service workers. Labor built the Australian superannuation system from the ground up because we deeply believe that workers deserve dignity in retirement. We will remain the strongest defenders of that, because protecting our super means protecting the future of working Australians. I commend the bill to the house.