The DomPost today reports on the Ministry of Social Development's push to get more retirees to claim pensions from their birth country to offset what New Zealand has to pay out. Fair enough. NZ has long held reciprocal pension arrangements with a number of countries.
But it raises another issue.
With many of those countries (particularly the United Kingdom, where so many NZ residents were born) lifting their retirement ages, what they save, NZ will have to pay out. Foreign-born new retirees will be eligible for NZ Super at 65 but there will be no immediate offsetting equivalent from their birth country.
Here's what is happening in the UK.
And this is what the US is doing.
It makes sense for NZ to broadly align itself with those countries is has social security arrangements with. This anomaly is yet another reason why John Key should have thought before pledging to hold the Super qualifying age down.
(Of course it would make more sense if people had their own individual pension plans but that's not the current debate. Raising the age of Super entitlement is.)
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2 comments:
Once again, if you're interested in "Centre" policies this just goes to show Labour is significantly to the right of National.
(Of course it would make more sense if people had their own individual pension plans but that's not the current debate. Raising the age of Super entitlement is.)
What's KiwiSaver - oh yeah, more Labour policies Key is yet to repeal.
It makes sense for NZ to broadly align itself with those countries is has social security arrangements with
no - it makes sense for NZ to do the right thing: abandon these "agreements" and terminate super and all other welfare.
It goes much further than "birth country".. After working in Oz for about 18 months then returning to NZ, I was told by MSW that I must apply for an Australian pension on reaching the age of Super. The 10 year qualifying period can be made up by adding in NZ working time. Something like 50 pages of application form demanding statements about almost every personal detail you can imaging. Personal assets of all kinds had to be valued and included as the OZ pension is means tested.
I managed to convince them (MSW) that it was pointless as I am over the income threshhold to qualify so they dropped it but left me with a promise that they will be back when I stop working.
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