Medicare supplants APRA on compassionate early release

The Federal Government has again turned to Medicare to deliver a superannuation service – this time the administration of the compassionate early release of superannuation entitlements.

The Government earlier turned to Medicare to provide the administrative arrangements around its free superannuation clearing house facility for small employers.

The move has been welcomed by the superannuation industry with Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) chief executive, Pauline Vamos (pictured), saying the use of Medicare would make things easier for people suffering hardship and requiring compassion early release of super entitlements.

“It is a commonsense solution for early release to be administered by a body that already has a customer service operation in place as well as the appropriate systems to assess and deal with claims on compassionate grounds,” Vamos said.

Announcing the changes yesterday, the Assistance Treasurer, Bill Shorten, said Medicare had been managing the claims for almost six months under delegation from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

He said that while APRA was responsible for administering the early release arrangements, the function did not fit well with the regulator’s role.

Shorten said the Government believed the function would be administered more cost-effectively following formal transfer to an agency which had an efficient customer support infrastructure.