Bill English wants to raise the age of Superannuation

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
21
0

And he has decided to go there.

English has clearly fumbled Superannuation and rather be seen as being too weak to change things, he’s decided to go all in and signal a rise in eligibility to 67.

It’s like the way National redefined ‘swimmable’ as a water quality, except this time Bill has simply changed the meaning of the word ‘eligible’.

This is a terrible blunder by National and Bill English, NZ First and Labour will have  field day with this.

What does such bloody mindedness tell us about Bill English?

That he is far more right wing and far more of an ideologue than John Key ever was. Key was a populist, English is a neoliberal free market acolyte who sees a chance to privatise every social obligation of the State and erode as many universal benefits as possible.

If English wins in September, everyone has something to fear.

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21 COMMENTS

    • It is not policy, it is unworkable bullshit making out they doing something wondering how they can cut public services and sell it to pay for the next tax cuts.

      And you know its a shitter when “business” and Nationals newspaper, The Herald’s editorial come out in support. Since when has business ever cared for anything more than maximum return for minimum input?

      I agree wth the proposition that he is far right though. English is a dinosaur from the Regan/Thatcher/Douglas era who despite the overwhelming evidence of growing inequality and the side effects of a hollowed out economy from globalisation and the fraud that is”free trade”, people residing in cars and working more hours for less, cheap migrant labour, he persists.

      Bill English’s blind arrogance is dangerous.

  2. The thing is life expectancy is DECREASING in both the USA and the UK (And Greece. And France….), due to the usual austerity and cuts, and the poor food and lifestyle “choices” people are making as they stare into the abyss.
    I would assume we will have a similar situation here.
    Increased longevity among the wealthy, and a decrease among the masses, those relying on the Government for either healthcare, housing or raising families.

    I would like to think Labour could have a field day. But how exactly? I seem to remember Little once thought means testing was a good idea. One of many good ideas that Labour has dropped like a hot potato. Hard to have a field day when your trying so darned hard to look like a ‘broad church’ and give the voters…the baby boomers…what they want.

    • I think you will find life expectancy falls in relatively wealthy western countries because of over prescribing drugs. Some high profile names include Heath Ledger, Micheal Jackson, Marylyn Monroe. The list is long

      • The diet of ordinary folk in western industrialised nations is designed to make profits for corporations, not to provide ordinary folk with good nutrition.

        Hence they are persuaded to eat all kinds of crap based on cane sugar, processed grains, factory-farmed animals, out-of-season fruit and vegetables that have been force-grown for colour and size etc., and most recently corn syrup.

        Add to that deadly combination the continued use of tobacco (no government makes any real attempt to stamp it out) and excessive consumption of alcohol, plus rising levels of all kinds of environmental hazards and low levels of physical activity, and you have the perfect set-up of people providing profits for corporations throughout their lives and keeling over in their 50s or early 60s.

        The echelon that is currently living to a long age in industrial nations grew up in a world of generally better food and very high levels of physical activity.

        Another important factor is that people who are living to a long age at the moment grew up in cohesive societies with secure employment and strong family connexions: nowadays there is a corporatized society in which there is very little security of employment (if any) and very high levels of social stress.

        With 2/3 of the populace overweight or obese as a direct consequence of corporatised industrial living, and a massive rise in cancers and other diseases triggered by environmental and stress factors, we should anticipate life expectancy to plummet fairly soon.

  3. I’m 53 and in the next 3 years will require a double hip operation. I pity the poor soul in my position come 2037!

    English has history, how he can manipulate, steal, trick and connive things for his own self interest. With this issue he will need to prey Act, The Maori Party and United Future to agree otherwise he’s toast.

    2037 clearly takes Winston out of the equation!

  4. This is a truly desperate backpedal from a game-losing policy. In the echo chamber of Treasury it may’ve seemed like a good idea – out in the the streets the oppressed masses do not look forward to more years of minimum wage toil, assuming they can even get that in the saturated cesspool the Gnats have made of the labour market.

    Wonder if it was going to be 70 before someone woke Bill up.

  5. Do you think he might be setting up a position he can “reluctantly concede” to NZ1st in the post-election negotiations? It looks that way to me.

    • I wouldn’t put it past him. I don’t believe the Nats and their PR/strategy machine are as stupid as this fiasco today. However, we can but hope.

  6. problem of last 40 years has been the goal posts constantly moving thanks to national every attempt at a cross party agreement has failed and this latest move will not be the last we need to demand a cross party agreement or the government of the days decision is worthless

  7. This is a desperate act by English, he must have felt, after all that media and public discussion the last three days, he and National are under pressure to show clarity. So he has rushed ahead to announce a change that will change nothing much for another twenty years, and then hit people who will not even be baby boomers.

    Also, depending on whatever population trend, given the massive immigration we have, the projected number of retired may actually be easy to manage as financial “burden” by then, or alternatively, the discussion about the whole issue may overtake this proposed change in the years before 2037.

    It is a sick joke, a delivery of something English felt pressured to deliver, but it will not affect most of us reading this here.

  8. The whole thing is a con trick.
    First, if the age of National Super eligibility needs to be raised it is not in 20 years time, it is now!
    The problem is now Mr English!
    But you have made sure that you and your rich baby boomer mates will continue to sit pretty. The generation that had free education, free health, free just about anything think they should be exempt from paying the piper.
    The people who will start paying the cost for the boomers’ greed is not even Generation X (my generation), it is Generation Y (my daughter’s). These were young kids when Bolger, Richardson were chuckling with delight as they continued the carve up of the New Zealand way of life that Roger the Gnome had started a few years before.
    Mr English, you and your troughing mates are the rich pricks who have caused this problem yet you transfer the blame onto those not at all responsible.
    And just remember whose government it was who set up National Super in the first place while simultaneously wiping Labour’s NZ Super scheme which everyone now except Hosking and Henry acknowledges was a huge mistake.
    National wanted their inferior and unaffordable scheme in simply because of political pique, and now this latest move is all but an admission that they cocked up.
    National cocks up and everyone pays the price.
    That’s what you get when you vote National.

    • +100 Mike. And these are the youngsters that baby boomers like to put down as “entitled”!intergenerational theft that of course won’t touch Bills wealthy children who will have their fees and deposits on houses paid for by him. An appalling and very funny series of interviews by the new leader should ensure Jacinda and Andrew get a poll bounce so …roll on Election Day.

    • ‘The whole thing is a con trick.’

      Yes.

      And without energy nothing happens. So the period during which global extraction of oil goes into terminal decline (as it most certainly will fairly soon) will cause the oil-based economic system to collapse and the con to be exposed.

      Will it be this year? Or next year? Or the year after that?

      Any talk of present economic arrangements lasting till 2037 (or beyond) is just a sick joke, a huge con perpetrated by professional liars!

  10. Its good to see Mike Hosking in the NZ Herald today bemoaning Billy Boy Dipper…. no slimy praise just criticism and comparisons to Key – Hoskings hero.

    It is good to see the far right wing neo liberals start to divide and tear themselves apart. And as Hosking bitterly points out … the wisdom that Billy Boy Dipper is a’ changed man’ is false…. he is the best person to lead the National party to long term oblivion this coming election that the center left has .

    If we could just get a few more classic Bennett and Joyce incidents over the coming months the election would then be secured.

  11. Surely if Bill just recommences contributions to the Cullen fund, Super would be affordable. Oh that’s right he won’t because Labour created it.
    I suppose that’s as good a reason as any?

    We can all now see why Bill failed as National leader before.

    Oh well, I guess “we’ll just have to wait and see”

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