Bailing out the FEG: Is the Fair Entitlements Guarantee (formerly GEERS) approaching its own fiscal cliff?

Amid the recent transition from the Commonwealth’s General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme (GEERS) to the new Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG), an issue that might have attracted more attention is the budgetary sustainability of the scheme itself. A review of Commonwealth Budget Papers and Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) annual reports for the last few years might give the reader cause to query whether GEERS in fact stands for “guaranteed endless expense and recovery shortfall”.