Copeland Gordon: New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Copeland Gordon: New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12563] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I must say it is something of a hardship to follow on from the previous speaker. He took his full 10 minutes and if any pensioners were listening to that speech they would not have heard one thing that would give them reassurance about this superannuation issue or a good night’s sleep. It was a definition of the obstacles and problems but offered no solutions whatsoever. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. If that member wants to concede 3 minutes I am happy to tell him what needs to be done. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. To interrupt a member’s speech like that is not correct. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: I think there is some hope on the horizon for our elderly people and United Future has some answers to the kinds of problems that have been outlined by Rodney Hide even though he has not been able to come up with any answers. First of all I would like to say that United Future deeply regrets the collapse of the superannuation accord. It was a very good attempt by the parties of the day to try to take this whole question out of the party political arena and to come together in unity so that we could give some assurance to the elderly people of this country that we had the means and a viable plan to provide for their pensions in retirement. Right now I still hope that in this Parliament the various parties can also agree on one or two things that need to be done and quickly if we are to achieve that goal. 
The first issue is that we need to do more to encourage people to make private provision for their own superannuation. I agree with Rodney Hide that we have to ask New Zealanders to do their bit personally if they are to have a reasonable standard of living in their retirement. 
There is a truism that applies to public policy: if the Government encourages something we get more of it; if the Government discourages something we get less of it. Right now the Government is discouraging New Zealanders from making private provision by virtue of the fact that the funds they earn on their pension schemes are taxed at a flat rate of 33c in the dollar even though 45 percent of New Zealanders are paying income tax at less than 33c in the dollar. That is a positive discouragement to save for retirement and I for one would continue to challenge the Government to address that issue in this year’s Budget and to ensure that marginal tax rates for those who pay tax at less than 33c in the dollar—normally at 21c in the dollar—will be reduced accordingly on the earnings of their pension fund. Going back to that truism we can then confidently expect that we will see some increase in private provision for retirement. 
I also think the Government needs to continue to give a strong lead in encouraging employment-based schemes to that goal. It is already doing that by again adopting—and I applaud that move—employer-subsidised schemes within the public sector. We now need to have companies and all other New Zealanders following suit and beginning to squirrel funds away for their own retirement. 
Notwithstanding the collapse of the superannuation accord I suggest that those parties in the House that have yet to make up their minds about Parts 1 and 2 of the New Zealand Superannuation Act should come to a decision rapidly. Like Rod Donald I listened to John Key from the National Party. I heard no commitment to Parts 1 or 2. Between now and the next election which is probably about 18 months away we need to see the National Party come out very very clearly and say that it will support those two parts. If it will not support them it should give people something a lot better than just simply saying that they may have to work a bit longer until they get a pension. 
That is the only concrete proposal that we have heard from the National Party so far. We have heard nothing in terms of solutions except: “You’ll just have to stay in the workforce longer.” That is not good enough. It behoves the National Party if it will not support Parts 1 and 2 to say so and say so quickly and come up with some viable alternatives. Otherwise again we will have our elderly people—that great number of New Zealanders as the baby-boomers start to hit 65—right now starting to think very seriously about hitting that age and how they will survive during their retirement. Time is short and we need to move and to move on it quickly. 
One other point occurred to me while John Key was speaking. He said that at the moment the New Zealand taxpayer pays $5 billion a year to meet the cost of pensions. He then went on to say that that would double. It is an interesting figure because our party has calculated that family breakdown is costing the New Zealand taxpayer $5 billion a year. We hear gloom and despair from Rodney Hide and others about superannuation but we need to look for positive solutions. That piece of arithmetic tells me that if we can put some real effort into rebuilding and strengthening families over the next 10 to 15 years and therefore reduce the cost of family breakdown—which will take a generation to achieve so it fits with the subject of superannuation—then from those savings we could sign off and say: “Yes we can undoubtedly afford the “65 at 65” principle. 
That is a goal we should all look to achieve and look for some positive and innovative solutions rather than throwing up our hands in despair and filling the minds and hearts of a lot of Kiwis with much gloom and doom quite unnecessarily. There are ways forward. We need to find them and we need to work on it urgently as a Parliament. 
United Future will support the first reading of this bill.