NZ First Leader Winston Peters has described his commitment to hold the retirement age where it is as a \u201ctop line, not a bottom line\u201d. <\/p>\n
His comments, made in an interview with Tova O\u2019Brien on Breakfast this morning, came after Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Newstalk ZB that NZ First and Labour were being \u201cquite dishonest\u201d by not facing up to the reality of raising the retirement age. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think just chucking it down the road to the kids and grandkids isn\u2019t the right way,\u201d Luxon said. <\/p>\n
Luxon confirmed his party would campaign on lifting the retirement age but did not go into detail on the specifics. Luxon\u2019s 2023 superannuation policy was to start lifting the retirement age in 2037, phasing changes in over time. <\/p>\n
In a report late last year, Treasury said that to keep superannuation at 5.1% of GDP, the retirement age would need to increase to 72 over the next 40 years. An alternative it suggested was raising income taxes by a third or increasing GST from 15% to 32% by 2065. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf New Zealand continues to delay change, we will instead be squeezing people born in future decades. The longer we wait, the greater the transition cost will become,\u201d the report said. <\/p>\n
On Breakfast, Peters was asked if he wouldn\u2019t return National to power at the next election if they refused to back down on the policy. <\/p>\n
Peters shot back at O\u2019Brien: \u201cDon\u2019t tell me how to negotiate.”<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a bottom line, it\u2019s a top line,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not going to change, guess why, because the elderly and the young, we’ve got to look after them. The ones in between, we’ve got to make all the great changes. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to change.\u201d <\/p>\n
Peters was asked if he was being \u201cdishonest\u201d by not committing to lifting the retirement age. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not,\u201d he replied. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been around for decades after decade after decade. Those people who are being dishonest are those who say they\u2019re \u2018not going to touch something, but we\u2019re going to change the age before 2038\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you change the age to 67 before 2038, you\u2019ll have no effect on next year\u2019s Budget, the next five budgets whatsoever.\u201d <\/p>\n
Peters said superannuation only made up 5.2% of New Zealand\u2019s GDP, \u201chalf of what other countries are striving to combat\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, it\u2019s not the problem at all. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saying to those MPs and Members of Parliament, and dare I say it, other parties who want to interfere with this commitment to the older people of this country, who now number almost a million, my answer to them is if you can\u2019t run the economy, get out of the way and let somebody who can run the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if there could be changes to the Super Gold Card, Peters said: \u201cStand back and watch, it\u2019s coming very, very shortly.\u201d <\/p>\n
He then pointed his finger at O\u2019Brien: \u201cThere\u2019s great news, you can relax. We\u2019re going to look after your mother and father properly. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking after grandmother and granddad so you can go off and do your job and work hard.\u201d <\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien replied: \u201cThank you for your services to my grandparents and my parents.\u201d <\/p>\n
Peters said he liked the idea of free GP visits for Gold Card holders, and said his party would \u201crevive\u201d the policy. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf they get a free GP visit and it saves 3% from going to hospital, straight away you make a saving.\u201d <\/p>\n
What can actually be done?<\/p>\n
Thanks, small tweak to headline: What can be done to make sure superannuation remains affordable? ANZ Chief Economist Sharon Zollner and Retirement Commissioner Jane Wrightson gave their thoughts on the different options as a ‘complicated, slow-mov (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n
ANZ Chief Economist Sharon Zollner told Breakfast there were \u201cvarious leavers you can pull\u201d to make superannuation affordable, but \u201cif you just pull one of them, then you need to pull it quite hard\u201d. <\/p>\n
She said raising the age to 67 would \u201cnot really\u201d make a big difference to fiscal sustainability. <\/p>\n
A \u201ccombination of different options\u201d would likely be more practical, but none were attractive. <\/p>\n
Means testing was one of the options Zollner suggested, under which pensions would go only to those who need them. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe main advantage of means testing is that, of course, you\u2019re not giving money to people who patently don\u2019t need it,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cA main disadvantage is that it reduces the disincentive to work and even to some extent, to save.\u201d <\/p>\n
Another option could be indexing super payments to inflation rather than wages. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn average, inflation is lower than wage growth, so over time those savings could accumulate as well.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ultimately unfairness, especially for young New Zealanders, was already \u201cbaked in\u201d to the issue. <\/p>\n
She described the whole situation as a \u201ccomplicated, slow-moving train wreck\u201d. <\/p>\n
If Treasury\u2019s report is followed and the retirement age is increased to 72 years, Retirement Commissioner Jane Wrightson said it would \u201cdetrimentally\u201d and \u201ccatastrophically\u201d affect women, M\u0101ori, Pasifika, and those in labour-intensive industries. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem with retirement income discussion is that it tends to laser focus on just one thing, and as Sharon said, there are a number of levers to pull, and we have to look at NZ Super and KiwiSaver together alongside any other things like Government incentives, maybe even tax. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not serving New Zealanders well if we don\u2019t do this once and do this right. One intervention is not going to solve problems.\u201d <\/p>\n
Wrightson wanted to see a \u201cgrown-up\u201d and bipartisan conversation <\/p>\n
\u201cIntractable nothing will change is not very good, intractable blow it all up is also not very good. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe question is what\u2019s good for New Zealanders, and if we can get at least the major parties in a room behind closed doors to start thrashing out some of these issues and come to a more agreed long-term plan, that would be the trick.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no simple answer here.\u201d <\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Winston Peters fires back amid superannuation debate, the M\u0101ori Queen meets Prince William, and Sir Rod Stewart\u2019s serve at Donald Trump. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NZ First Leader Winston Peters has described his commitment to hold the retirement age where it is as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,137,139,69,244,245,135,294,136],"class_list":["post-424574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-first","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-politics","tag-retirement","tag-winston-peters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}