Thanks to Rick Davies and Ian Callan for recent information on reactions to the Ombudsman’s investigation into the administration of the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits scheme and the resulting report number 06/2019 dated December 2019, reproduced below.

From Rick:

From: Herb Ellerbock <admin@adfra.org>
Date: 16 January 2020 at 3:00:08 pm AEST
To: davrickrob@bigpond.com
Subject: Request for Review of the Ombudsman’s Report
Reply-To: admin@adfra.org

Dear Rick,

Today I submitted the attached Request for Review of Decision to the Ombudsman with copies to the Minister and Senator Seselja.  You can also view the Request by clicking here.

If you submitted to the investigation I encourage you to make a similar request.

You should send an email along these lines:

To:       ombudsman@ombudsman.gov.au

Cc:       darren.chester.mp@aph.gov.au; senator.seselja@aph.gov.au

Subject: Request for Review of Decision – Report No. 06/2019

Dear Mr Manthorpe,

I request a review of your decision in Report No. 06/2019.  The reasons for my request are detailed in the attachment.

Yours sincerely,

(Your name)

Attach my Request for Review of Decision.

You should also consider sending it to your local Member of Parliament and your State Senators.

Kind regards,

Herb

If unable to see the attachment Click Here

An update on the Ombudsman’s inquiry into DFRDB at this link (thanks to Rick Davies for passing this on). As Rick says “Interesting document yet disappointing result.”

The Ombudsman has just put out an update regarding the DFRDB investigation at www.ombudsman.gov.au/dfrdb.  ADFRA (ADF Retirees Association – see https://www.adfra.org) will release a further update on their actions shortly.

I’ll post updates on DFRDB as they come in – so thank you to contributors. The latest is from Ian Callan, who commented in his email that: ‘We should encourage every DFRDB member of our class list to at least read all of the updates from Herb and if they feel inclined to join the association to get this and other issues sorted.  It has a huge impact on our wive’s pensions if we fall off the perch and a huge impact on our financial position until we all die.’

Ian provided a link to an update from the Australian Defence Force Retirees Association at this link.

Links to the three are at:

DFRDB UPDATE 07-2019

Article – The Border Mail – 20 July 2019

Letter to the Editor – The Border Mail – 20 July 2019

Subtended is the text of an email from John Elph (with addresses omitted) that you may have received, but just in case….

I hope you don’t mind me sending you another note regarding DFRDB commutation, but If you do, please just let me know and I won’t bother you again and I won’t be offended.

In case you didn’t keep a copy of the info sent to you by DFRDB  ‘back in the day’, I’ve attached a copy of the only bit of paperwork that I held on to. Note that it is completely silent on the amount of time we would take a reduced pension to pay off our commutation.

You may want to use it for replying to the Ombudsman’s questionnaire.

Please also send to as many others who you think may have commuted and encourage them to submit an answer to the questionnaire. From what I have seen there are a few organisations/ well intentioned individuals who are pushing the same barrow but like many things do with ex-military, it does not seem to be well co-ordinated and also perhaps, seems to be split down officer vs OR lines which is a great shame. Seems to me that it is a topic worthy of our attention.

Cheers

John

From: Herb
Sent: Tuesday, 21 May 2019 8:57 PM
Subject: Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Inquiry into the administration of the DFRDB scheme

Dear John

The Commonwealth Ombudsman, has decided to commence an investigation into the administration of the DFRDB scheme with respect to commutation.  Please refer to the Ombudsman’s Letter (click to open).

The scope of this investigation is limited to the accuracy of information provided by scheme administrators and relevant departments to DFRDB scheme members, in relation to commutation.

The Ombudsman has provided a Questionnaire (click to open).  I encourage you to complete and email it to DFRDB.investigation@ombudsman.gov.au.

The Ombudsman doesn’t give a time-line but I’ll endeavour to establish what it is.  I suggest you get your submission in sooner rather than later.

The new (or perhaps the same) Minister will undoubtedly pass this off as the Inquiry he announced, making a nonsense of his statement:

“The Government recognises the importance of open and transparent discussion around veteran concerns and we will consult with the ex-service community about the terms of reference for the inquiry, as well as panel membership.”

Kind regards,

Herb

Another piece has just been forwarded:

DFRDB UPDATE 07-2018

Two items placed on the Class of 72 Facebook page by Rick Davies – many thanks.

Dear Classmates,

Some of you may have seen the article by John Wasiliev in last weekend’s Financial Review titled ‘Got a defined pension benefit? Then read this.’ I understand that the essence of what Wasiliev postulated is reflected in the Exposure Draft of the proposed Bill that aims to change the superannuation landscape (published earlier this week). I have not read the Exposure Draft (Explanatory Memorandum) yet.

Essentially what Wasiliev said is that Defined Benefit Pensions will be treated for taxation purposes thus: the annual income is multiplied by a factor of 16 and that sum is to be included in the $1.6M the earnings from which (in the Pension Phase) tax is not liable for payment. So theoretically, if the DFRDB treatment is as described (yet to be tested) and a recipient drew say $30,000.00 per annum x 16 = $480.000.00 results leaving $1,120,000.00 available to make up the total to 1.6M – say from your SMSF. He says the MSBS pension is treated differently (muliplies by a factor of 10 at 65 years of age).

And another article in this weekend’s Financial Review on page 24 – essential reading I suggest.