But in a letter issued yesterday, Federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner bluntly rejected calls to increase public service and military superannuation beyond rises in the consumer price index.

''The Government has no plans to move away from the CPI for indexing the pensions of Commonwealth superannuants,'' Mr Tanner wrote in a letter sent to ACT Labor Senator Kate Lundy on October 22 and issued by her late yesterday.

Mr Tanner was a no-show at yesterday's combined meeting of the Superannuated Commonwealth Officers Association and the Defence Force Welfare Association that vowed to continue to campaign for fairer pension indexation in line with increases in the married rate of age pension.

Mr Tanner had been invited to address the packed meeting at the Ainslie Football Club to justify the Government's decision to renege on an election promise to boost public service and military pensions and to instead accept a recommendation by economist Trevor Matthews to continue to use the CPI to index public service and defence superannuation. Mr Tanner didn't attend the meeting, sending a junior staffer instead. Mr Tanner had, however, undertaken to meet members of the association.

Vice-president of the superannuated officers association, Annette Barbetti, dismissed Professor Matthews' review as ''a cut and paste effort with the fingerprints of [the Department of Finance and Deregulation] all over it''.

The Government's decision directly affects about 300,000 Australians, including more than 40,000 in the Canberra region.

Over the past 20 years, Federal MP's pensions have increased by 130 per cent and the aged pension has risen by 110 per cent.

However, public service and military pensions have increased by only 70 per cent.

Labor MPs Mike Kelly, Bob McMullan and Annette Ellis and Senator Lundy wrote to Mr Tanner last month, saying that the Government had ''abandoned the spirit of the election commitment to a review that would address the inadequacy and inequality of the indexation method''.

Senator Lundy told the meeting she had arranged for a delegation from the two associations to meet Mr Tanner, but she only issued the minister's letter rejecting any change to indexation arrangements some hours after yesterday's meeting.