When Luxon claimed $1000 a week of tax-free, taxpayers money for accommodation, because he didn’t want the 2 free properties he was offered, he said he was entitled to it. But according to the government, all beneficiaries now require harsher rules or risk having their entitlements stripped. Yet only ~5% aren’t compliant and last quarter, 1500 were cut off. What do the numbers say?
Winston Peters has named the person he says leaked his super details. Has ACT joined National in doing Dirty Politics?
Newsroom and Newshub have broken a story about Winston Peters receiving, for the last 7 years, a single person’s super payment that he was not entitled to because he was living with an (undeclared) other person. Peters denies this but has already payed back the excess from an “innocent mistake”.
English isn’t going to be very happy when he opens the papers this morning.
In what seems to have been a panicked reaction to a disastrous series of interviews, English has just announced that the age of eligibility for super will rise from 65 to 67, phased in from 2037.
In what was apparently a pretty dire interview on The Nation this morning, Bill English dropped one bombshell, possible changes in superannuation. For the record I think English is right on this. For a change.
English is not making the same stupid pledge as Key, to let superannuation consume the future. Time for a cross party accord. Take it off the table as a political football and solve the damn problem.
Dunne’s proposal for flexible superannuation is a U-Turn for Key, while he hides behind it being a Dunne and flexible initiative & good for low income people. Sue Bradford argues against Dunne’s initiative, saying it will benefit those on higher incomes. She prefers better and universal benefits.
Recent pieces by Bernard Hickey and John Armstrong both highlighted the problem of our aging population and the unsustainability of super – in Hickey’s memorable words we are “consuming our future”. Armstrong tries to balme MMP, but that won’t wash, it’s just the usual short-sighted Nat stupidity…
Foss has effectively challenged the PM’s stance on ruling out changes to the age of eligibility for NZ Super. A minor rebellion? A faint flickering of independent and rational thought form within the National caucus?
John Key started preparing the ground to work with NZF, looking to forge a “Save Super” platform for 2014. But Winston Peters smacked him down hard.
On Superannuation Key is in a very strange position indeed, where keeping his word is doing him more harm than breaking it. It’s a disaster for the country.
Why does John Key appear so confident that we are not facing a future superannuation crisis? It seems unlikely that the government would allow a cull of the elderly, due to the usual complaints from liberal hand-wringers. So where are the solutions to the problems caused by an ageing population?
The superannuation problem isn’t going away. The Nats will be fuming that Treasury have just dropped in their laps again.
Another in what looks like becoming a regular series.
Two news snippets yesterday seemed to me to capture the essence of John Key PM. First, his response to recommendations about super, and second his prognostications on the Christchurch insurance market.
We are going to have to have this debate some time. Maybe it will be possible now that Labour has shown how to stare down supposed “electoral suicide”.
Brash’s call for a “flexible pension” is the thin end of the wedge leading to a rise in the age of eligibility for super. At the moment National are rejecting his call, as Key would be obliged to resign if the age is raised. But the problem remains. National have weakened Labour’s Cullen fund and KiwiSaver, and they seem to have no ideas of their own…
