Senator ALLISON (11:30 AM) —I want to advise that we will be supporting the Public Employment (Consequential and Transitional) Amendment Bill 1999 . But I do want to put on the record our disappointment that, having resolved the connection between parliamentary salaries and another benchmark which can allow for that full transparency and for those salaries to be set in accordance with some sort of standard, the parliament and the government have not addressed a question which has been one of great public interest for some years now: the parliamentary superannuation scheme. I want to put on the record the disappointment that the Democrats have in the fact that this was not dealt with in this legislation.

We will be making submissions to the government in relation to dealing with the parliamentary superannuation scheme, and I again draw the Senate's attention to the superannuation committee's report almost two years ago, which said that attention needed to be paid to this question. I also draw the Senate's attention to the Prime Minister's remarks that the matter should be a holistic one—that is, we should not be considering superannuation without also looking at the question of remuneration for parliamentarians. That issue has not been resolved. The Prime Minister has not delivered on that promise that he would do it. I want to indicate that the Democrats will continue to pursue this, but obviously there is not a great deal of support from either of the major parties in this respect.