SUPERANNUATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 262, 4 November 1932, Page 6

SUPERANNUATION.

In England civil servants make no contributions towards their superannuation except what they contribute by way of taxation in common with the rest of the community. In New Zealand civil servants pay from five to ten per cent of their salaries into the superannuation fund, and past Governments have not only broken their contract with the service by omitting for some years to subsidise the fund, but the present Government in the Finance Act of last year actually introduced the "actuarial allowance," so that if a civil servant retired with thirty years' service he would have 44 per cent deducted from his allowance, or with thirty-five years' service, 2<S per cent deduction, although the original conditions were that, in the first case, he would receive thirty-sixtieths of his average salary during the last three years of his service, and, in the second case, thirty-five-sixtieths. These original conditions should be adhered to, as the actuarial allowance in most cases is insufficient to enable retired civil servants to lire in ordinary comfort and decency and forces them to compete with others in the labour market. No retiring allowance under f2OO per annum should be reduced. No suffering would be caused in most cases by reducing allowances over £200, and in respect of these there should be a graduated scale of reductions. The new proposals provide for retirement of a male at sixty with 40 years' (Service, but as a female may retire at fifty-five with 35 years' service why should not a male on attaining sixty (five years older) be able to voluntarily retire with the same leifgth of service? Again, why should he be compelled to serve until he is sixty-five if he has not completed 40 years' service, as in the case of those who joined the service as adults and have always contributed to the fund on an adult's salary? On account of the actuarial allowance introduced last year many civil servants, instead of now being able to retire on an allowance of thirty-sixtieths or thirty-five-sixtieths, as the case may be, after having several "cuts" in' their salaries, will be forced to serve for years longer than they bargained for. It is to be hoped that the Select Parliamentary Committee will take these matters into consideration. If civil servants are to Secure anything approximating justice it appears to me that the personnel of the committee should be equally representative of all parties in the House. The committee chosen is not so. ELECTOR.