Super Experts Expose Labour’s Empty Promises
ACT Finance Spokesman Rodney Hide today said that eight superannuation experts had exposed Labour’s empty promise to elderly voters.
“Labour has promised that their new ‘New Zealand Superannuation Tax’ and ‘New Zealand Superannuation Fund’ will make ‘the problem of sustainability disappear’. This is dishonest nonsense.
“The experts say that Labour would have to raise an additional $3.7 billion a year by 2004 to ‘smooth’ the cost of New Zealand superannuation as Labour intends, that the policy is ‘more likely to increase the cost of New Zealand superannuation over the nest 30 years’, and that ‘Labour’s policies will hinder rather than help Kiwis prepare for their retirement’.
“Labour’s Dr Cullen has failed to provide any costings of Labour’s superannuation policy in his fiscal forecast released last week. Labour’s super promise is another empty one.
“I have written to Dr Cullen earlier this week asking him to detail the size of Labour’s “New Zealand Superannuation Tax” each year and the projected size of Labour’s “Superannuation Fund” over a generation. I doubt he will reply. I doubt he can.
The eight experts who agree that Labour’s super policies are fundamentally flawed are:
Michael Chamberlain, actuary, of MCA NZ Limited, Auckland
Leo Harper, financial adviser, Auckland
Dick Jessup, actuary of Melville Jessup Weaver, Wellington
Roger Kerr, economic, business and financial markets commentator Auckland
- Michael Littlewood, director, Planit Services Limited, Auckland; former member of the Task Force on Private Provision for Retirement 1991-92; author of How to Create a Competitive Market in Pensions: the International Lessons
Grant Niccol, chartered accountant and company secretary, Auckland
- Angela Ryan, economic consultant, Melbourne; former Secretariat Manager of both the Task Force on Private Provision for Retirement 1991-92 and the Periodic Report Group 1997
- Jeff Todd, company director, Auckland; former Chairman of both the Task Force on Private Provision for Retirement 1991-92 and the Periodic Report Group 1997
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