Speech: Peters - The New Generation Supergold Card
Speech: The New Generation Supergold
Card
Bruce Mason
Centre,
The
Promenade,
2pm, Saturday, September
9
Ladies and gentlemen,
this is an election being conducted as though there is no
tomorrow and no other economy but ours.
There is serious global stress out there which the old parties are not telling you about.
They don’t want to remind you as to who it was that cobbled together our present economy which is such a fragile vessel in a turbulent sea of international competition.
A number of international commentators point to an odd contradiction between financial markets and political developments.
A former US Federal Reserve Chairman is puzzled over the ability of financial markets to ignore deepening political turmoil in Washington and elsewhere.
An advisor to one of Europe’s biggest insurers has a similar concern.
They say there are signs of enormous stress in political systems – but the upheaval and uncertainty has not translated to financial markets.
Can this contradiction persist? There is no crystal ball but a sudden change in mood sentiment can happen in financial markets and the NZ economy is no exception to this trend.
Unlike responsible governments, National has simply used record immigration to hyperventilate the NZ economy, as Labour did.
So NZ is in a vulnerable situation.
And let me warn you. If there is a crisis, the government will be quick to attack superannuation.
They’ll be
coming for you first.
A few months
ago Grey Power’s national president said all 65,000
members across New Zealand were preparing for political war
over NZ Super.
Their concern was understandable.
They fear being attacked by political parties who have a history of attacking the income security of older people.
Only one party has never compromised its
position on New Zealand Super.
Unlike the other parties
we don’t move the goalposts and play political football
with NZ Super; we don’t make U-turns.
We don’t tell
voters one thing and later on say: “Circumstances have
changed, we’ve changed our mind.”
But one thing we
want changed is the minimum residency requirement to obtain
Super.
Right now it is just 10 years in New
Zealand.
We want that to extend to 25 years.
Right now
87,000 have come here in the last 15 years and got full
Super after just 10 years.
That’s unbelievably unfair
against hard-working taxpayers.
And changing up to 25
years is still generous.
In Canada its 40 years; the UK
35 years.
NZ SUPER FACTS
Here are the
facts on NZ Super:
Currently, the cost of NZ Super is
around 5% gross of GDP – a level that compares very well
with many OECD countries.
Even by 2060 Treasury estimates
NZ Super will still be just under 8% of GDP. And those are
gross figures.
As NZ Super is taxed, the actual net cost
to the taxpayers is significantly less, at around 3.8
percent.
The fact that NZ Super is taxed is often
deliberately ignored.
NZ Super as a percentage of GDP
will stay the same even with an ageing population if New
Zealand doubles its GDP by 2050.
But this can only happen
if the population is not artificially inflated by mass
immigration.
We cannot continue to take in net 73,000 new
immigrants a year – enough for a city the size of Rotorua
- as we are now doing.
SECTION 70
New
Zealand First is also committed to changing Section 70 of
the Social Security Act.
This affects a specific group of
people who are entitled to an overseas state pension.
As
a result of section 70, around 70,000 people receiving NZ
Super have some level of deduction made. It is wrong and
unfair to those affected. NZ First is committed to fixing
this.
The Sorry History of NZ
superannuation
The last 30 years has been a
sorry history of NZ superannuation being changed by
political parties who promised they would not do
that.
From Labour’s claim that anyone saying Labour
would change superannuation was “spreading rumour with
malice”, through to:
- National’s repeal of the
surtax, that Labour put on, “no ifs, no buts, no
maybes”, then increasing the surtax to 92 cents in the
dollar
- to National’s busting a coalition agreement
to reduce Super down to 60 per cent,
- to Labour
campaigning in 2011 and 2014 to increase the retirement
age,
- to National opposing Labour’s age increase plan,
and now adopting it;
- to National stopping the Cullen
Fund contributions,
- and then taxing the Cullen Fund
earnings.
It’s been one sorry saga of betrayal.
So
if there is anyone here that thinks they won’t do that
again if they are allowed to, then please reflect on the
recent history of those two parties and others on the
question of Super.
And it’s the “allowed to” that I
want to talk to you about today.
It is New Zealand First
that got rid of the pernicious surtax.
It is New Zealand
First that took the Super payments back from a low of 60 per
cent not to 65 from whence it had dropped but to 66 per
cent, and then introduced the SuperGold Card.
SUPERGOLD CARD and NATIONAL’S
APATHY
New Zealand First
introduced the SuperGold Card 10 years ago.
A letter
writer to The Press newspaper in Christchurch this
week wrote:
“I am a 78-year-old male Kiwi who has
spent all his working life in New Zealand and paid the
relevant taxes. Now retired and living in changed
circumstances I find that financially living on NZ Super
only is very challenging.
“I am very grateful to
be living in my own home, receiving the Super and having the
Gold Card.
“When I hear of all the proposed new
and increased benefits and assistance continually being
offered by both the main parties, I believe they have
overlooked the need for increased help for the country’s
seniors who have played a great part in the growth of this
country.”
Here is what someone wrote
under a Fairfax article which attacked the Super Gold Card
under the headline “Oldie Super Gold Card greed needs to
be curbed.”
I thank God for Winston’s Gold card
for my 70-year-old single (never married) sister, living
alone, just managing to cope. The gold card is her safety.
It gets her to places, friends, and activities. She uses it
every day. She has no savings and her super pays her rent
with almost nothing left over.
New Zealand First
has not forgotten the people like this man and woman who
played an important role in growing this country.
It is
why we introduced the Super Gold Card and why we have fought
for NZ Super. dumped the SuperGold Card years ago – if
they could.
But they woke up to the fact the card had
been hugely successful.
They knew there would be too
great a backlash from the voters, so they let it carry
on.
They kept on sniping though.
FOR
SENIORS: UNDERHAND SMART CARD DUMPED
It’s why we opposed Steven Joyce trying to
cut the SuperGold Card travel; concession and why we are
going to abolish the sleight of hand despicable demand that
SuperGold Card holders buy new smart cards to travel off
peak on public transport in Auckland.
This sordid attack on older people is going to be repelled.
Seniors Minister Barry has utterly ignored superannuitants on the question of travel but then, in a Grey Power national magazine, this year she had the cheek to say that National had built the Card into the great success it is today.
“We have built the card into the great success it is and National remains absolutely committed to growing its value and usefulness.”
That has got to be most audacious and spurious claims made by a modern politician, but then again you know her better than I do, so you are probably not surprised.
This Election Has Reached a Tipping
Point
Some parties are so desperate they are
saying anything to get your vote;
Amazingly both Labour
and National think that we have a strong economy. That’s
astonishing but very insightful because in every area of
examination, be it housing, health, education, police
numbers, Department of Conservation spend, biosecurity,
etc., etc, etc, all have a massive underspend.
That
underspending equals a spurious surplus.
And whilst we
are at it.
The Labour Party’s policy is to build 10,000
houses a year, they claim that is better than
National.
Well, work it out.
If 73,000 are coming net
to New Zealand every year, how far will 10,000 houses a year
go. At four people per house Labour doesn’t even get
within coo-ee of building houses for those people getting
off the plane, let alone that massive number of people in
New Zealand already waiting for a house.
Some
commentators say New Zealand is on the brink of a political
revolution.
Well we have had those before. A political
revolution lasts just as long as other people’s money
lasts. Your money – the taxpayers’ money.
And history
is in real danger of repeating itself in New Zealand because
thus far none of Labour’s promises have money for anything
other than education, health, and some welfare.
It is
this environment that New Zealand First is seeking to
improve the lives of older people by extending their buying
power.
Things older people worry about are the same
throughout life. Finances, wellbeing, health care, personal
safety, law and order, loneliness. The price of power. The
cost of living. As people get older, their feeling of being
able to control these things change.
Take Macular
Degeneration for example.
Did you know that 1 in 7 people
over 50 years of age in NZ will get this disease?
Going
blind when you don’t have to be now preventable if you are
detected early.
That’s why we are introducing FREE 3
medical checks and 1 FREE eye test every year for Gold Card
members.
It’s our responsibility as politicians, to
step in and protect the rights of the aged, and treat them
with the respect they deserve and have earned.
The new
breed of Robin Hood politicians, see retirees as targets.
Society has made significant strides in reducing pensioner
poverty in the past 30 years. Unfortunately, there are still
many who are living in poverty.
NZ First wants them to
benefit from the collective power of 650,000 plus Gold Card
members.
Super Gold Card members contribute over $5
billion to the NZ economy each year.
They also contribute
to the economy informally – by caring for their
grandchildren and other family members.
We need a
cultural shift so young people growing up learn to
appreciate and respect the value older people and the many
benefits they can bring to society and the
workplace.
There is evidence of age discrimination in the
work place. We as a nation need to retain and retrain older
people.
At 25, we worry about what others think about
us.
At 45, we don’t care what people think of us.
At
65, we realise they haven’t been thinking about us at
all.
At NZ First we have been thinking about you.
We
have developed ideas that are going to give you more. More
freedom. More benefits. More money.
What we are going to
do for you is simply facilitate a massive commercial
connection between 650,000 Gold Card members and
business.
You, the Gold Card members, are the biggest
spending block in the country.
There is over $95 million
paid out in Superannuation each week.
About $10.146
billion every year.
Roughly half of that, is spent on
living and consumption.
We will provide every
Gold Card member, on average, $800 to a $1000 additional
per year, tax free!
How will we do this? Well,
we have something really exciting to show you
shortly.
Through the new power of the SuperGold Card, you
won’t have to go to the retailers, they will come to
you.
You are New Zealand’s biggest consumer buying
group. And you have been ignored for far too long.
But
not any longer!
Ladies and gentlemen, here is the NEW
GENERATION SUPERGOLD CARD.
ENDS