Advice for your ESSSuper Revised Scheme benefit.

Employees, including temporary employees, who joined the Victorian Public Service, the Teaching Service or a participating agency between 1 January 1975 and 30 June 1988, plus members who transferred in from other funds. Teaching Service staff from that era are usually Revised Scheme members, not SERBS. The scheme was introduced in 1975 and has been closed to new members since 30 June 1988. Source: ESSSuper’s Revised Scheme Handbook, checked 16 August 2026.

On retiring or resigning after your minimum retirement age, you can convert up to 50% of your fortnightly pension to a lump sum, or convert 100% of it. There’s nothing in between above half. The election must be made within three months before or after the date of your retirement.

If you don’t make it in that window, you get one more opportunity in the three months before your 65th birthday, and the conversion takes effect when you turn 65.

You get one further chance, in the three months before your 65th birthday. The conversion then takes effect when you turn 65 — not on the day you elect.

Miss that second window as well and the pension stays a pension. Those windows are set out in ESSSuper’s Revised Scheme Handbook (checked 16 August 2026).

That is the decision the scheme exists to hand you, and it can’t be answered generically, but the shape of it is clear enough. What you hold is a fortnightly payment for life, indexed in line with the Consumer Price Index for all capital cities. The scheme carries the risk that you live a long time and the risk that markets fall. Converting hands both of those risks back to you, permanently.

You may convert up to 50%, or 100%, and nothing in between above half. A 100% conversion removes any future eligible spouse or partner pension. For a partial conversion, ESSSuper’s worked example shows how Option A and Option B change the lump sum and eligible spouse or partner pension while leaving the member pension unchanged.

The three-month election window is the deadline, not the starting gun.

Your minimum retirement age is normally 55, or 50 for eligible Prescribed Class Officers, and a pension is payable if you retire or resign after it. So yes, in most cases.

Preservation age is a separate thing and it is 60 for anyone born after 30 June 1964. If you draw the pension after 55 but before preservation age, it’s paid at the untaxed amount to compensate for the 15% tax offset you’re not yet entitled to, and it’s reduced to its taxed level once you reach preservation age. That isn’t a cut in real terms, but the number arriving in your account does change, and it’s worth knowing before it happens rather than after.

It depends on the option selected. Option A may preserve a higher eligible spouse or partner pension with a smaller lump sum. Option B may provide a larger lump sum and a lower eligible spouse or partner pension.

If you convert 100% of your pension to a lump sum, you also convert 100% of any future partner pension. Nothing further is payable to either of you.

An eligible spouse or partner can be paid a reversionary pension. ESSSuper’s FS014 fact sheet says a spouse under 60 is offered the chance to commute 100% of that pension within 12 months of the member’s death. A spouse aged 60 or over can commute up to 50% or 100% of the pension to a lump sum.

Those spouse choices sit on top of whatever you already converted while you were alive. Source: ESSSuper FS014, When a loved one dies, checked 16 August 2026.

ESSSuper says a Revised Scheme lifetime pension is assessed under the income test and isn’t counted as an asset. That treatment belongs to this lifetime pension — not every defined benefit income stream gets it, so confirm your own position with Centrelink.

A lump sum you convert into, by contrast, is an ordinary asset and is also deemed. Source: ESSSuper FS007, checked 16 August 2026.

It refers to resigning shortly before your minimum retirement age of 55 — at 54 years and 11 months — which entitles you to a refund of your contributions and earnings plus a pension available from age 55. The point of it is that the refund can be larger than the lump sum obtainable by converting part of the pension after 55 under the age retirement benefit.

ESSSuper is explicit that it isn’t necessarily the best option for all Revised Scheme members. It also isn’t available if you’re retrenched. It’s arithmetic on your own numbers, not a rule.

The tax status of state super benefits changed from an untaxed to a taxed basis on 29 June 1995, and members receive a 15% tax offset on pensions from that point. If you draw the pension after 55 but before your preservation age, it’s paid at the untaxed amount to compensate for not yet being eligible for that offset, and is reduced to its taxed level once you reach preservation age.

Preservation age is 60 for anyone born after 30 June 1964.

The dividing line is 30 June 1988. If you joined before it, the Revised Scheme. From 1 July 1988 to 31 December 1993, the New Scheme. The two are genuinely different: the Revised Scheme pays a lifetime pension, and the New Scheme’s ordinary age-retirement benefit is a lump sum.

They also have separate handbooks and separate rules, which is why we never read one across to the other.