Advice for your ESSSuper scheme.

Who you worked for, and when you started. Operational employees of Victoria Police, Fire Rescue Victoria and Ambulance Victoria, certain Country Fire Authority and Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning positions, and non-operational staff who started with an emergency services employer before 1 January 1994, are in the ESSS Defined Benefit Fund.

For the rest of the Victorian public sector it comes down to a date. Victorian Public Service, Teaching Service and participating agency staff who joined between 1 January 1975 and 30 June 1988 are in the Revised Scheme; those who joined between 1 July 1988 and 31 December 1993 are in the New Scheme. Staff of participating statutory bodies employed before 30 June 1988 who weren't eligible for the Revised Scheme are generally in the SERB Scheme; teachers from that era are usually Revised Scheme members instead. Employees of a transport authority as defined by the Transport Superannuation Act 1988 are in the Transport Scheme. The Accumulation Plan is designed for current and former Victorian emergency services employees, State Super scheme members and their spouses, and you can hold one alongside any of the schemes above.

The ESSS Defined Benefit Fund, if you’re an operational employee of Victoria Police, Fire Rescue Victoria or Ambulance Victoria, hold certain Country Fire Authority or Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning positions, or are non-operational staff who started with an emergency services employer before 1 January 1994. Protective Services Officers who started with Victoria Police on or after 5 July 2010 are classified as operational and join the same fund automatically.

Your benefit is a formula — your Accrued Benefit Multiple times the average of your salaries over your last two years of service — and it’s paid as a lump sum. Prescribed Firefighters may instead be covered by the New Scheme, which has a 24.5% accrual rate at the 7% contribution rate. An Accumulation Plan account can sit alongside the defined benefit and follows separate investment-based rules.

It depends when you started. Staff of participating statutory bodies employed before 30 June 1988 who weren't eligible for the Revised Scheme are generally in the SERB Scheme, which pays a lifetime pension and a lump sum together (teachers from that era are usually Revised Scheme members instead). Teaching Service staff who joined between 1 January 1975 and 30 June 1988 are in the Revised Scheme, which pays a lifetime pension. Those who joined between 1 July 1988 and 31 December 1993 are in the New Scheme, whose ordinary age-retirement benefit is a lump sum.

Anyone who started after 31 December 1993 isn’t in one of the closed schemes at all — what you hold will be an accumulation-style account, at ESSSuper or elsewhere.

Your Accrued Benefit Multiple at the date you retire, multiplied by your Final Average Salary. Final Average Salary is the average of your salaries over your last two years of service. Think of the multiple as a stack of yearly slices: contribute nothing and you add 8.5% of salary a year; contribute 7% from after-tax pay and you add 25% a year.

The maximum multiple is generally 7.5 — what 30 years of full-time service at 7% produces — though some members who started before 1 July 1988 can have a higher maximum, and the Optional Benefit maximum is 8.4. The benefit isn’t an investment balance, so a bad year on markets doesn’t reduce it. ESSSuper also compares the formula result with a Minimum Requisite Benefit — a legislated floor designed to broadly match what Superannuation Guarantee contributions would have built in an ordinary account — and you receive whichever amount is higher, per the ESSS Defined Benefit Fund PDS issued 1 March 2026.

Log into Members Online at esssuper.com.au/members-online and go to Contributions / Change contribution rate. You can change the rate three times per calendar year. If ESSSuper receives your election by the 14th of the month, it takes effect from the start of the next month; after the 14th, it waits until the month after that.

When you join the ESSS Defined Benefit Fund the rate defaults to 7% from after-tax pay — the salary-sacrifice equivalent is 8.3% of before-tax pay. Operational members can choose 0%, 3%, 5%, 6% or 7% after tax. If your average rate has sat below 7%, catch-up rates of 8%, 9% or 10% can be available. The rate you pick changes the multiple you accrue each year, and it also changes death and disability cover, as set out in ESSSuper's defined-benefit PDS dated 1 March 2026.

It is ESSSuper’s transition to retirement product: a regular payment from your super while you keep working, once you’ve reached preservation age. Preservation age is 60 for anyone born after 30 June 1964. To open one you need to roll over at least $50,000.

ESSS Defined Benefit members can convert a minimum of 20% and a maximum of 50% of their accrued retirement benefit into the Working Income Stream. Doing so reduces your Accrued Benefit Multiple — and your maximum multiple — in proportion to what you moved. The other closed defined-benefit schemes don’t have this option; Accumulation Plan money can usually be transferred in. Legislation then sets how much you can draw: between 4% and 10% of the account balance for the financial year. Investment earnings inside the Working Income Stream are taxed at 15%. Source: ESSSuper's Working Income Streams fact sheet FS015 and the ESSS Defined Benefit Fund PDS issued 1 March 2026, checked 16 August 2026.

The ESSS Defined Benefit Fund treats that as a resignation benefit, not a retirement benefit. A retirement benefit is available from age 50. Leave earlier and ESSSuper works out a smaller lump sum, using a different formula that depends on your age, your years as a contributor, and your contribution rate.

Under five years as a contributor, the amount is each year’s contribution rate plus 3%, multiplied by your Final Average Salary. Past five years the formula splits: a period of your most recent service still uses that lower rate — the final five years if you’re under 45, or the years remaining to age 50 if you’re between 45 and 50 — while your earlier years use the full accrual table. At the date you leave, ESSSuper also compares the result with the Minimum Requisite Benefit and pays whichever is higher. The figures that apply to you’re on your ESSSuper statement and in the PDS issued 1 March 2026.

It’s the account ESSSuper uses if you leave your emergency services employer and want to keep a defined-benefit lump sum invested with the fund, including on an untaxed basis. To use it you have to transfer 100% of your ESSS Defined Benefit. Transfer anything less, and the Beneficiary Account isn’t available.

The 100% transfer is what opens the Optional Benefit: the lump sum is recalculated on the accrual rates that applied before 1 July 2005, with a higher maximum multiple of 8.4 rather than 7.5. That benefit can contain an untaxed element within its taxable component, and higher tax applies to that element when you draw it. If you don’t tell ESSSuper how you want the benefit paid within 60 days of finishing, your taxed benefit is moved automatically into an Accumulation Plan account and invested in the default option, under the rules in the 1 March 2026 PDS.

By when you joined and by what the scheme pays you. The Revised Scheme was introduced in 1975 and closed to new members on 30 June 1988; it pays a lifetime pension. The New Scheme was established in 1988 and closed to new members on 31 December 1993; its ordinary age-retirement benefit is a lump sum.

Source: ESSSuper’s Revised Scheme and New Scheme handbooks, both issued 28 February 2025.

No. The Revised Scheme pays a lifetime pension indexed to the CPI. SERBS pays a lifetime pension and a lump sum together. A New Scheme, Transport Scheme or ESSS Defined Benefit membership is paid as a lump sum.

Some members of the New and Transport Schemes who transferred in from another scheme carry a pension entitlement with them. That is a transfer-history question, not a scheme question, and it’s worth checking on your statement rather than assuming.

Yes, if you retire or resign after your minimum retirement age. Commuting means turning some or all of the fortnightly pension into a one-off lump sum. You can convert up to 50% of the pension, or convert 100% of it. There’s nothing in between above half. The election has to be made within three months before or after your retirement date.

Miss that window and you get one further chance, in the three months before your 65th birthday, and the conversion then takes effect when you turn 65. A 100% conversion also removes any future eligible spouse or partner pension. For a partial conversion, the scheme offers Option A or Option B, which change the lump sum and the partner pension while leaving your own reduced pension the same. Source: ESSSuper's current Revised Scheme Handbook, checked 16 August 2026.

In several of them you can. The minimum retirement age in the Revised Scheme, the New Scheme and the Transport Scheme is normally 55, or 50 for eligible Prescribed Class Officers. SERBS pays its retirement benefit from age 55. The ESSS Defined Benefit Fund pays a retirement benefit from age 50.

Preservation age is a separate thing, and it is 60 for anyone born after 30 June 1964. Finishing before 60 changes the tax treatment. In the Revised Scheme a pension drawn before preservation age is paid at the untaxed amount until you get there. In SERBS, accessing the benefit before you reach the scheme maximum reduces the entitlement according to your age and years of service. In the Transport Scheme, converting a deferred benefit before 55 discounts it by 4% a year compounded.

Which scheme you’re in changes how Centrelink treats you. A lifetime pension from the Revised Scheme or SERBS is assessed under the income test, and ESSSuper says these lifetime pensions aren't counted as assets (not every defined benefit income stream gets that treatment, so confirm your own).

A lump sum from the New Scheme, the Transport Scheme or the ESSS Defined Benefit Fund becomes an ordinary asset. Centrelink counts it in the assets test and also assumes it earns a set rate of income whether it does or not — a rule known as deeming. Same fund, two very different Age Pension positions, which is why the scheme question comes first here too. Your ESSSuper statement and Centrelink’s current deeming rates are the figures that matter.

Yes. We advise on the ESSSuper scheme you already hold. Guideway specialises in industry, government and corporate super funds, and a Victorian government scheme is the kind of decision we sit with.

If you’re happy with how the scheme sits, there’s often no reason to disturb it — and we’ll say so. If you’re not sure the money that can actually leave still stacks up, we can benchmark it against five leading comparable funds so you know exactly where it stands.

Nothing. It’s a free half hour. Tell us what you’d like to discuss and we’ll explain if and how we can help, including any fees, before you decide to go ahead.