Clearly, I favour a gradual raising of the pension age.<\/p>\n
I have in the past rubbished Labour for recognising there is a problem with keeping the entitlement age at 65 then taxing sensible people to solve it.<\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t fundamentally address the need to rebalance the proportion of working taxpayers with pension recipients.<\/p>\n
It is widely accepted, even by the Nats, that the worst political decision of the last 50 years was the cancelling of the original pension scheme by Muldoon following the dancing Cossacks advertising campaign.<\/p>\n
The 50th birthday of that dumb move is soon upon us and we will all be forced to suffer dreadful comparisons of how well off Aussies are and how far behind we have fallen as a result of our relatively poor savings record.<\/p>\n
The Nats have bravely, but cautiously, approached the subject with the intention of making it compulsory and increasing employer and other contributions.<\/p>\n
Recently, I listened to a surprisingly good speech about our pension system from Nicola Willis who laid out some clear principles to inform the debate. I wish her all the best.<\/p>\n
Winston is obviously a long-term supporter of keeping the pension system at 65 but with a surging elderly population, incidentally heavy with his supporters, it\u2019s no surprise he sees no need for change.<\/p>\n
The fact is that with increasing life expectancy, the percentage of the population over 65 continues to increase and the percentage working to pay for this is proportionally dropping. This is just plain arithmetic that even the Greens would get.<\/p>\n
The simple solution is to keep moving the age of entitlement up as the population age rises. This has happened before in New Zealand with a move from 60 to 65.<\/p>\n
Labour is tepidly putting a toe in the water to test the debate as the party realises this could be an issue it is forced to face if it actually wins this election.<\/p>\n
It seems to understand that there is a problem, but as Labour has often done, it then chooses the wrong solution to the problem by attacking those who have judiciously saved for their retirement, rather than the simpler and more even-handed way of just raising the age.<\/p>\n
In April, leader Chris Hipkins said he was open to discussing whether New Zealand\u2019s superannuation should be means-tested. But then in June, he firmly ruled out any changes to superannuation, stating \u201cLabour will not means test New Zealand superannuation, and we will not increase the age\u201d.<\/p>\n
The party\u2019s reasoning harks back many years to when Labour actually represented people who were labourers, whose hard physical work often led to shorter lives.<\/p>\n
These days, Labour\u2019s core supporters are sedentary bureaucrats and university lecturers. The construction workers have largely deserted, as either employees of small businesses or in many cases self-employed tradies who have moved well to the right.<\/p>\n
Increasing savings, via KiwiSaver and otherwise, doesn\u2019t just look after the elderly but is a real prop to the economy, providing a much-needed source of capital that New Zealand is so desperately short of.<\/p>\n
Our pension schemes have mostly invested offshore chasing returns, but we do need an increasing share of those funds invested locally as our tech sector and others start to provide good investment opportunities.<\/p>\n
Let us all hope for a rational debate on this pressing issue over the next few months, rather than falling for dancing Cossack advertising that belittles the importance of the issue to all of us.<\/p>\n
Who knows, someone might even offer us a retirement scheme as good as all those undeserving politicians have given themselves using our money.<\/p>\n