The following message from Denis Fitzmaurice is repeated for your information.

By 1 December 2016, all registered superannuation schemes such as FireSuper must have transferred to the new Financial Markets Conduct Act (FMC Act) regime. The current plan is that FireSuper will transition to the new regime towards the end of September.

Before the transition can occur, a number of changes will need to be made. Some of these, such as changes to FireSuper’s trust deed and other documentation, will be operational and behind the scenes.

More noticeable will be the establishment of a new trustee company in place of the current individual trustees. The current trustees will become director of the trustee company and their responsibilities will remain largely unchanged. The Commission and the Union will each continue to appoint three directors and those six directors will appoint an independent trustee, who will also be the licensed independent trustee, as required by the FMC Act.

Another change is that the scheme’s current investment statement will be replaced by a new product disclosure statement. The FMC Act sets out the information that must be included in the product disclosure statement and limits it to a maximum of 6,000 words or 12 pages.

The FMC Act shortens the timeframes within which FireSuper’s annual review information must be issued. From 2017 onwards, the annual report and financial statements will need to be completed by the end of July and benefit statements issued by the end of June.

 While strengthen the governance and general protection for members, these changes will have no significant impact on members or their benefits.

Absence Management

The Fire Service is in the process of rolling out their Absence Management Policy. The Policy has taken a long time to develop and the absence rates now are far lower than they were when the Policy development commenced.

If anyone experiences any problems or concerns about the implementation of this Policy as it affects them – please immediately document what occurred and forward this to your Local Secretary.

The Union needs to know how, when, were and why problems or concern with the implementation of the Policy is occurring and we need to know ASAP.

If we don’t know, we can’t try to fix things.