It's a somewhat tempting idea. It'd do for Winston Peters.
Writing in the NZ Herald this morning Matt Heath says:
Should old people be allowed to vote?
Unsurprisingly the Brexit vote was carried by older people. Only 19 per cent of those 18-24 wanted to leave. Yet the young will have to live with the result for the longest time. Lumped for life with a decision largely made by pensioners. Older voters specialise in looking back instead of forward. So why should those on their way out decide a future they won't be around to see?
The same thing is happening here. There are clear changes NZ needs to make if we are to thrive in the modern world. Many of these changes are being stalled because politicians must appease baby boomers to survive.
Heath is correct to worry about the top-heavy demographic but wrong to assume they all vote similarly. They are not all grey power socialists looking to further feather their own nests at the cost of the rest of the population.
If you're under 50, why the hell are you paying for Super you will never get yourself? Why aren't we increasing the age of retirement? Why is there no means testing on pensions? Why is there no movement on our property issues? Simple. There's lots of old people, they love to vote and backing changes they don't like is electoral suicide.Well, I have a great deal of sympathy for these points and there is probably some truth in his reasoning. But the older generation will eventually be passing on their wealth. To force down property prices would mean carving value off assets and risking deflation. Property prices are what they are (under current legislation) because NZ is a very attractive place to live. That means it's also a country abounding in opportunity and looking at a better future than many others.
You can't blame the elderly for why they vote. We all vote selfishly. But it becomes unfair when the demographics shift so far that young voters are drowned out. At 65 a New Zealander has been voting for 47 years, surely that's enough time to get your point across.
I would challenge the statement that "we all vote selfishly". I vote primarily with a whole country view. And that coincides for what is best for following generations.
Old age is a time to relax. You deserve a rest at 70. Let the young people who live for the future mould that future. When I am old I hope I am brave enough to hand power over without a fight.
The world is a terrifyingly confusing place when you're elderly. You're being left behind. When you're young you jump up stairs two steps at a time. When you're old you stand at the top trembling. Unfortunately fear can lead to judgmentalism and bigotry. Which leads to illogical positions.
Uuumm. Isn't ageism a form of "judgmentalism and bigotry?" Isn't Matt's an "illogical position"?
Oldies say they paid taxes their whole lives and deserve a pay day. If that's the case, where is all that money? If you saved it, where is it? Why does so much of our tax today go to Super? The answer is clear. All the money has gone. Boomers and the Governments they voted in have already spent it on themselves. It was a massive, short-sighted, generational cock-up. Hopefully the current tax-paying population will be more responsible with their futures. Unfortunately much of the money we should be saving for our futures is being spent on covering a generation who voted to put nothing aside.It's been a very long time since anything was "put aside" for Super. Fifty years at least. There used to be a few state forests owned by the social security fund but since the sixties pensions (and all the other not inconsiderable working-age welfare) has been funded from the current tax-take.
Though we do have KiwiSaver and start-up subsidies. How did that get voted in???
But Super is the real source of his anger I think. And again, I sympathise. So what Matt Heath needs to do is stop complaining, figure out which party is prepared to vote in his interests - start one if need be - and make sure he gets the message out to all of his like-minded generation.
But he should also remember that many of the people he wants to disenfranchise are grandparents and parents who will vote with their children's interests uppermost.
9 comments:
If you're under 50, why the hell are you paying for Super you will never get yourself?
This is the most important thing. No-one under 50 today can expect super or anything like that from the state.
No-one under 40 can expect state hospitals by the time they turn 60.
No-one under 30 should expect state schools for the kids, or WFF or all the rest of the welfare scam.
KiwiSaver and start-up subsidies. How did that get voted in???
It didn't. Cullen sneakily got it passed when he was swimming in cash just before the GFC.
grandparents and parents who will vote with their children's interests uppermost.
like the **** who voted for Labour's massive tertiary education bribe on student loans?
No representation without taxation and an end to all forms of welfare are the only. rational, sustainable, and moral policies.
You can't blame the elderly or the young for voting in their own interests. It is identity politics and socialist wealth distribution that causes people to vote for their 'fair share of the cake'. As for the 19% of 18-24 year-old Brexit voting figure, that is the proportion of total voters of that age who voted for Brexit, not the proportion of those who voted. Young people also had the lowest turnout (36%), so another way of looking at the statistics is that only about 25% of all eligible voters of that age supported Remain - hardly an overwhelming endorsement of the EU by the young.
What amuses me about these sort of rants is the failure to do math.
Lets start from WW2 when the voters were "The Greatest Generation".. they voted themselves 3.5% house loans, state houses virtually forever. They also voted out Roger Douglas' tailored Super scheme and in with Muldoon's pay as you go starting from age 60. They also voted in Think Big and overseas debt to the tune of 65% of GDP.
Effectively there were no baby boomers in Govt or even much in the way of voters till the Lange Govt came in and righted the ship and lets not forget that Baby Boomers couldn't vote under age 21 till 1969 when it became 20 and then 18 in 1974. The great majority of the Boomers weren't born till the late 1940s to the 1960s and therefore weren't an effective political platform till the late 70s and 80s.
In was the Boomers who brought in the Lange Govt reforms and the Boomers who paid down the majority of the overseas debt from 65% to zero ten years ago and the Boomers with the $100+ billion in savings in the bank currently being lent to a younger generation.
No generation is perfect and they all make their decisions according to the prevailing political climate of the time.. in the post war period it was socialism till the late 80s/early 90s, now it's something more like capitalism and you can blame or praise the Boomers for that change.
As for the Millennials and younger they are a bit like the Curates egg.. they think the Boomers are selfish but demand the Gummint do everything for them.. as Brexit showed they prefer the semi benevolent slavery to an unelected cartel in Brussels, loss of personal freedoms to the perpetually outraged supremist Islamists, unrestrained migration and for what?
Then there's the ones we never hear about.. they are just getting on with it and leaving their crybully baby mates in their dust.
(Disclosure) I am not a Boomer but one of the richest generations of all.. the so called "Silent Generation" of 1925-45.
JC
The superannuation was part of Muldoons 1975 election campaign. Eligibility was 60 and I think it was 80% Of the average net wage for a couple until it was changed in the 90s, a good wicket. The people who voted this policy in were mostly pre baby boomers. Anyone who was 60 or over were eligible . Baby boomer have only started drawing super since 2010 so prior to that superannuants were pre baby boomers. So most of the cost of super today is going to pre baby boomers still. We know that will change as more baby boomers retire and with life expectancy increasing gov't sooner or later will have to deal with this just as the gov't in the 90s did as they new it was going to be un affordable.The baby boomers are getting flack because of the large number who will be drawing super, but that same large number of people will have paid lots of tax. Gov't needs to start cutting back on welfare for those under 65, those that are creating babies they don't want, those that contribute nothing etc, yet welfare is in fact being increased. Welfare is definitely unaffordable.
Why not take it to its logical extreme - only allow taxpayers to vote.
Everybody pays gst.
Matt Heath is an idiot. An idiot without anything worthy to write. Perfect for the Herald.
When Kirk came to power in 1972, NZ had overseas reserves of something like $900 million dollars. That was the last time that our balance of payments was in the black. Kirk said we did not need those reserves and told the nation Labour would use them. That $900 million dollars was gone in short order, and another $1000 million into the red as well, in just three years. Inflation went from 5.5% to 15.5% in the same period. That is what socialists do. The reality of this fiscal disaster was already dawning on the voting public when Kirk died in office. Kirk had the good fortune to die in office, his belovedness intact, whilst Rowling and his colleagues suffered the well deserved thrashing for their profligacy at the 1975 Elections.
The influence of the superannuation debate was more that voters did not want Labour's plan than that they wanted Muldoon's.
Labour's projected superannuation policy was to be funded by 4% deducted from the employee's wages, matched by 4% contributed by the employer. Employees very quickly understood what an 8% slice out of their wage packet meant. Voters also understood that the Unions, still powerful in those days, would be demanding an increase in wages to replace those deductions, adding to the already rapidly escalating rate of inflation. There was also the general realisation that this fund could also grow big enough for the Fund (Government) to be able to purchase every single company in New Zealand. Socialism by stealth.
So in just three years, Labour had turned a massive win in 1972 into the biggest reversal in New Zealand's political history.
But memories of those times vary from person to person.
Recently Ian Johnstone, the foremost TV political interviewer of those times, was interviewed himself, on RadioNZ, about the period covering Kirk, Muldoon, then Lange. Near the end of the interview he was asked if he thought Labour would have been re-elected in 1975 had Kirk not died in office. Unbelievably, he thought Kirk would have won.
Everybody pays get
No they don't. Only people who earn an income from investment or private businesses pay GST - the vast majority of Kiwis, WFFers, bludgers, codgers, etc etc etc an the vast mass of taxpayer employees (that is unionists, i,e. teachers, health workers) don't pay any GST themselves because they don't have any of their own money: they only have our money
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