Donald Rod: New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Donald Rod: New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12560] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be supporting the New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill to the select committee. This bill recognises that the accord between the Alliance Labour National and later the United Party is now very much part of our history and that therefore that part of the Retirement Income Act is no longer functional. 
On that particular point of course this amendment bill will now become part of the New Zealand Superannuation Act. It is well known in this House that the Green Party strongly supports Part 1 of that Act which guarantees the universal public provision of superannuation to New Zealanders of retirement age—in other words those people who reach the age of 65 years. What is more we support couples who reach that age receiving 65 percent of the average wage after tax and individuals getting 60 percent of that amount. 
We also made it very clear during the debate on that legislation that we did not support Part 2 of the legislation which is the introduction of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund because we have grave fears that investing our savings—our taxes—on the overseas sharemarket will not give New Zealanders the certainty and security in retirement that they deserve. 
I could talk at length about that—and inevitably will when we come to the Budget—but today in relation to this bill I want to focus on the fact that I listened very carefully to the speech made by John Key of the National Party to see whether he would use the opportunity of debating the New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill to make a commitment on behalf of the National Opposition to Part 1 of the Act which is about to be amended by this bill. We did not hear a single dicky bird from the National Party. What we heard was that it wants people to have security in their retirement. What we did not hear was that the National Party will finally sign up to Part 1 of the New Zealand Superannuation Act. 
So we are in the extraordinary position whereby the second-largest party in this House—the party that is the pretender to Government—is not prepared to guarantee New Zealanders certainty in their retirement. I think it is worth highlighting the point given that we are introducing a bill that will repeal the accord that Part 1 of the legislation that has in effect replaced the accord has not been supported by National. There is an inherent contradiction within the National Party because former leader Bill English made the commitment during the third reading debate on the New Zealand Superannuation Bill that National supported Part 1. He made that commitment because he said “New Zealand can afford the payment of 65 percent of the average wage to married couples at age 65.” National’s new leader Don Brash has instead said that those of us who are under 50 will look forward to having to work beyond the age of 65. He is not being specific about how far beyond because we have learnt in relation to nuclear ships and other issues in recent days that the leader of the National Party is not prepared to be specific about anything that he knows will be unpopular. It is certainly very unpopular amongst New Zealanders that National plans to lift the age of retirement. 
Returning to the bill and the other key feature within it I point out that the consultation process spells out that the Green Party was consulted—and indeed we were—but it also states that no concerns were raised about the proposed amendments. I must say that it was a verbal conversation before the adjournment but my recollection is that we did raise some concerns about abolishing the periodic report groups. 
I think the explanatory note in the bill is a little disingenuous in stating that the Government has decided to accept the recommendation of the Periodic Report Group 2003 to remove the periodic reporting function when in fact the periodic report group actually said that a policy review only once every 6 years was too infrequent to adequately inform retirement income policy. Our position on that which is one that we are looking forward to exploring further in the select committee process is to ensure that there is an ongoing work programme and that there is some consultation with independent experts. We cannot do better at this stage than what the periodic report group proposed in its own report which was to establish a work-based savings group and a process for the ongoing monitoring of savings tax and regulatory issues. That was coupled with an advisory group to create a mechanism for stakeholders to provide comment and input into the work programme. 
We saw great value in an advisory group or in a periodic report group that included employers unions finance industry representatives and other experts. I certainly enjoyed making a submission to that group and I very much enjoyed the searching questions that it asked of me. I am sure that other parties and other submitters found the experience equally valuable. More to the point I hope that the group made good use of our input and indeed I believe it did in its report. 
The main benefit that I felt came from the periodic report group 2003 was the fact that it got around one table all the key players and representatives of all the key sectors that have an interest in retirement. There were representatives of working people with the combined trade unions representatives of employers representatives of the Government the Retirement Commissioner and people such as Vance Arkinstall from the financial services industry. That led to all the benefits of the dialogue and the discussion that come about when people who have a common cause up to a point but differences in ways of achieving it can have a meaningful dialogue discover what they do have in common recognise perhaps where there are opportunities to achieve a change in position without necessarily sacrificing anyone’s principles and also perhaps occasionally agree to disagree. Out of that flows a whole lot of benefits that cannot easily be quantified in a report but that I believe are benefits we would lose if this bill proceeds as it is and abolishes the Periodic Report Group. 
So with that one change to the legislation that I would like to foreshadow I confirm that the Green Party will be voting for the first reading of this bill.