The PSA has been advised by Treasury and Finance that the Government intends to enable members to have the option of accessing superannuation benefits before retirement. The intention is to enable members approaching retirement to reduce their working hours and use to superannuation benefits to, in part, replace salary lost by the reduction in working hours.

In addition, consideration is being given to enable members to access long service leave one day at a time and to expand flexible working arrangements in other ways.

While PSA is supportive of such options being made available, it is important that members are not financially disadvantaged, and also that there is no adverse impact on workloads of members.

Any transition to part-time work must ensure that workloads are managed properly and that this proposal is not used as a way of reducing staffing.

The Association will be involved in ongoing discussions on this initiative.