While in Australia, the delegation met and held working sessions with important social security agencies and organisations such as Services Australia, the Association of Superannuation Fund of Australia, the Australia Retirement Trust and Centrelink – Services Australia. At the meetings, the Australian side applauded the VSS proposal to boost cooperation with Australia in order to perfect and develop the social security system towards taking people as the subject, the centre of services, the goal and motivation of social security and to improve the quality of social security services.

This is also the development orientation of the Vietnam social insurance industry following the direction of the Prime Minister.

Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Services Australia Jonathon Thorpe receives the delegation from VSS

At a working session with Services Australia – a State management agency for social security and public services in Australia, Aciting Deputy Chief Executive Officer Jonathon Thorpe introduced the organisation of Australia’s social security system and achievements in digital transformation and application of information technology in providing the best public services for local people.

Particularly, the launch of the “My Government” application has helped to manage information and provide high-quality services via the digital platform for more than 25 million Australian people, ensuring timely settlement of social welfare benefits and social security for people, particularly in emergency cases of natural disasters or pandemics.

Thanks to the application of information technology and strong digital transformation, the number of online public services transactions in Australia reached 1.1 billion in comparison with 9.7 million in-person transactions.

VSS Director General Nguyen The Manh introduced the Vietnam social insurance industry and the development orientation of the industry, particularly the viewpoints to speed up digital transformation and application of information technology to improve the quality of social security services in line with the path implemented by Services Australia.

Manh proposed Services Australia provide consultancy and share information, experience and technology in digital transformation as well as help train VSS staff to continue to implement digital transformation and develop to meet people’s satisfaction. 

The VSS delegation visits the Centrelink

The VSS delegation visited Centrelink – Services Australia to observe its operation. Leaders of Centrelink provided detailed information about public services provided by the centre and some of its professional activities. They expressed willingness to share experience, provide consultancy and technical support to help the VSS complete and improve the quality of providing public services for people.

During the visit, the delegation also visited and had working sessions with the Association of Superannuation Fund of Australia (ASFA) and the Australia Retirement Trust to study their investment activities, strategies and risk administration of retirement funds in Australia.

At the sessions, Australian partners introduced regulations and processes of managing the operation of the Australia Retirement Trust and supervising and administering risks in investment activities as well as about investment potential and opportunities. Exchanges about the legal foundation and investment activities of retirement funds of Australia are valuable experience for the VSS to learn in the process of participating in building policies relating to managing the investment of the social insurance and health insurance funds as well as in building and completing the master plan to improve the investment management capacity of VSS following the Government’s direction.

With VSS partners in New Zealand, amid the context when the two countries officially lifted their relations to a strategic partnership in 2020, helping to boost cooperation in many fields, including social security, the VSS has paid attention to developing cooperation with the Social Development Ministry of New Zealand, the New Zealand Super Fund and Waikato University.

During this visit to New Zealand, VSS Director General Nguyen The Manh met with Professor Niel Quigley, Principal of Waikato University. The two sides reviewed the results of their cooperation in training and improving the capacity for staff of the Vietnam social insurance industry from 2016 with seven training courses, training more than 150 officials of the VSS in foreign language and professional knowledge and skills at Waikato University.

In order to implement the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two sides for cooperation during the 2022-2025 period, VSS Director General Manh and Professor Niel agreed to build action plans for each year and for each content of cooperation about social insurance professional skills, digital transformation and security, information security, communications, financial management, human resources management and English language training. They will initially organise an online training course on information and data security for information technology staff of the VSS in October.

At a meeting with the Social Development Ministry of New Zealand, VSS Director General Manh proposed the two sides continue to boost cooperation and share information and experience in digital transformation, improving the quality of providing public services for citizens, ensuring information and data security and safety.

Working with the New Zealand Super Fund, VSS Director General Manh proposed the possibility to cooperate and provide technical support and experience of New Zealand in completing the legal foundation, building investment strategies and diversifying investment lists of the retirement fund to ensure safety, sustainability and efficiency over a long-term period.

The working visit to Australia and New Zealand by the VSS Director General was a success with effective and practical discussions and information and experience sharing, opening up many cooperation opportunities between VSS and social security agencies of Australia and New Zealand, contributing to enhancing the friendship and strategic partnership between Vietnam and Australia and New Zealand in the future.

Some images of the VSS delegation during the working visit to Australia and New Zealand