{"id":494333,"date":"2026-06-25T05:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/494333\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T05:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:00:18","slug":"national-ends-50-year-superannuation-war-but-a-new-retirement-equity-battle-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/494333\/","title":{"rendered":"National ends 50-year superannuation war \u2013 but a new retirement equity battle begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Comment: When Seddon\u2019s Liberals established a means-tested, government-funded pension in 1898 New Zealand led the world. Forty years later, Savage\u2019s reforming Labour government broadened it to be a universal government-funded pension for everyone over 65.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The \u201cuniversal\u201d remained in place until another Labour government, led by Kirk, introduced the compulsory, contributory NZ Superannuation Scheme in 1974. But Muldoon quickly equated the state-controlled investment funds the scheme would build up over time with a form of communism (the infamous \u201cDancing Cossacks\u201d of the 1975 election campaign).<\/p>\n<p>\t\tSubscribe to continue reading<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center newspack-sign-in wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:13px\">Already have an account? <a href=\"#signin_modal\">Sign In<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Unlimited access Newsroom Pro articles<\/p>\n<p>Bonus subscription for a friend or family member<\/p>\n<p>Exclusive subscriber-only emails <\/p>\n<p>Access to post and read comments on articles<\/p>\n<p>A daily morning email of news and insights curated by Newsroom Pro editorial team<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.co.nz\/newsroom-pro-subscription\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Corporate subscriptions also available<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comment: When Seddon\u2019s Liberals established a means-tested, government-funded pension in 1898 New Zealand led the world. Forty years&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245,247501],"class_list":["post-494333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-political-comment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494333","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=494333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}