Wilson Margaret: Government Superannuation Fund Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Wilson Margaret: Government Superannuation Fund Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Volume:606;Page:3718] 
Hon MARGARET WILSON (Attorney-General) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Finance 
: I move  
That the Government Superannuation Fund Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time. 
 The bill removes an anomaly that unfairly deprives around 800 widows of pensions from the Government Superannuation Fund. It is our second attempt to do this. A member’s bill that was introduced by a former colleague Jill White when Labour was in Opposition was defeated by the then National Government. This time we will succeed. Under the Government Superannuation Fund’s old general scheme eligibility for the widows pension is suspended if the widow remarries and it remains suspended for the life of the new marriage. That is a hangover from the old male breadwinner concept and is out of step with current social mores so I am pleased that we are now removing it from our statute book.  
This bill was introduced in May last year and has been caught in the Government’s heavy legislative programme but any inconvenience to those who stand to benefit is temporary only as the bill once passed will apply retrospectively from 1 July last year. This bill was reported back from the Finance and Expenditure Committee in September. The committee has recommended only a small technical change—to remove an ambiguity in clause 4. Otherwise the bill is unchanged. It removes the inequalities in the treatment of members by firstly repealing the provisions of the principal Act that suspend the payments of benefits to a spouse in the event that he or she remarries and providing for the restoration of suspended benefits to spouses who have remarried. Secondly it aligns the allowances paid to children of deceased members by replacing the fixed annual allowance prescribed in the old scheme with the inflation-adjusted allowance provided for in the new scheme.  
Around 47000 people receive Government Superannuation Fund pensions. Of those 12000 are surviving spouses and of those about 800—all widows—may be affected by the bill. A very small number of children—about 19—are affected by the change to the child allowances. There are no non-regulatory options available to fix the problems that the bill seeks to remedy. Amendments to the legislation include clause 2—the Act comes into force on 1 July 2002. Clause 3 specifies that the purpose of the Act is firstly to entitle the spouse of a contributor under Parts 2 5 or 6 of the principal Act to be paid an annuity after remarriage; secondly to restore annuities currently suspended after remarriage; and thirdly to align cost of living adjustments to children’s allowances paid under Parts 2 5 and 6 of the principal Act with those paid under Part 2A.  
Clause 4 amends section 45 of the principal Act. The effect of that amendment is that the remarriage of the spouse of a deceased contributor does not affect that person’s entitlement to the annuity and the payment of annuities currently suspended will resume with effect from 1 July 2002 as if those annuities had not been suspended.  
Clause 5 amends section 47 of the principal Act by requiring that all children’s allowances under the old scheme must be calculated in the same way as children’s allowances under the new scheme. The effect is to increase the allowance from $78 a year to $2414 a year.  
I commend the bill to the House.