Robert Belzer

National Secretary, Telstra Section, Community and Public Sector Union

IT specialist

Trustee, Telstra Superannuation Scheme

Railway photographer

Robert Belzer attended Camberwell High School from 1953 to 1958, matriculating, albeit in only four subjects, in 1958.

His memories of CHS are mixed. There were some great teachers - Robert Ewins in English Literature stands out. There were some great characters - Harold Begbie in Biology, for example, and some with personality disorders who had best remain nameless.

After CHS, he completed a Bachelor of Laws degree at The University - there was only one then, of course, and he then, quite logically, became a Computer Programmer, working for the then Postmaster-General's Department of the Commonwealth Government.

Robert still works in computers today - and still with the same employer - although now the employer is called Telstra. Today his main job is computer mainframe technology planning, but his job covers much more. For example, three times a year Robert organises Telstra's Technology Forum, where Telstra's information technology plans are presented to an Australia-wide audience of IT industry people.

The coup d'etat of November 11 1975 was a catalyst for Robert to become active in his Union, the Community and Public Sector Union. He has been a local workplace delegate continuously for over 25 years and was President of the Victorian Branch of CPSU for 11 years until the end of 1999. Robert is now the National Secretary of the Telstra Section of CPSU and a member of CPSU's National Council. He has been the CPSU nominee on many Selection Panels, Promotion Appeal Boards and Committees, Disciplinary Appeal Boards and Committees. In this latter capacity, he has had a fellow CHS alumnus, Dr Ron Huttner, appear before him on a number of occasions.

Robert has also been part of the CPSU negotiating team for a number of major agreements - the most recent one being the 2002 Telstra Redundancy Agreement. He is also actively involved whenever the Enterprise Agreements covering CPSU members in Telstra are negotiated.

When you are young, superannuation is really boring. But superannuation is something which gets more and more interesting as you get older. Robert is one of four member-director Trustees for the Telstra Superannuation Scheme (TSS), a position he has held since mid-2001. After completing a one-year cycle on the Audit and Compliance Committee, Robert moved to the Investment Committee - the committee which oversights the key investment decisions of TSS. TSS is Australia's largest corporate superannuation fund with about $6.1 billion in assets and over 73,000 members.

Robert has been a keen photographer since 1965, concentrating on photographing steam trains in their natural habitat. Today, of course, this is remarkably difficult to do. Over the years, Robert's pursuit of steam has taken him to India, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia, South America, Southern Africa, Turkey, New Zealand and many other places, as well as all over Australia. The last great steam frontier, China, remains a goal. Robert's work has been published in a number of multi-contributor books, but a solo book is still in the future.

The other great interest in Robert's life is music. After a couple of attempts to learn the piano and a stint in the local Church choir, the only musical instrument which Robert now plays regularly is the gramophone. Robert has been collecting recorded music since the age of 14 and has a vast library of LPs and CDs of classical music. Robert lives in Ivanhoe with Maureen and Luke.