HIGHER PENSIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 184, 5 August 1936, Page 10

HIGHER PENSIONS.

ALL-ROUND INCREASES.

INVALIDS AND DESERTED WIVES.

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday.

An increased vote for pensions was announced by Mr. Nash in his Budget speech to-night. The vote proposed, he said, was £5,480,000. compared with an expenditure of £.T : 770,000 for last year. Pensions for invalids and deserted wives were provided for. I "As a community we have a definite responsibility to ensure that those who are not. able to fend for themselves, because of infirmities or old age, are able to enjoy a resonable standard of comfort," said the Minister. "As already indicated, it is the intention of the Government to establish a national health and superannuation scheme that will provide or insure everyone against these contingencies. In the meantime we must, as a matter of urgent necessity, do something to increase the inadequate pensions at present paid." As a commencement, a number of additions and amendments, as from July 1 last, were proposed. It was intended in the case of war pensions: (1) To increase the rate of economic pensions payable to war pensioners to 25/ a week; (2) to restore fully economic pensions payable to war widows and widowed mothers; (3) to restore' the allowances payable to wives and other dependents of deceased and disabled soldiers; (4) to remove the present marriage restriction on the granting of pensions to the wives and widows of exsoldiers in the case of all women who were married on or before July :il last —this also applied to the wives of exsoldiers applying for war veterans' allowances; (5) to increase the Maori War pension to £1 a week.

Old Age Pensions. Proposals in connection with old age pensions were: (1) To raise the old age pension to £1 a weeTc; (2) to provide for women otherwise qualified to receive it the full old age pension at 60 years of age; (3) to reduce the residential qualification for old age pensions to 20 years; (4) to provide that income and not property owned is to be the decisive factor in determining the amount of pension payable; (5) to provide for all naturalised aliens otherwise qualified to be eligible for the old age pension. As concerned miners' pensions, the Government proposed that miners incapacitated through occupational diseases should be eligible for miners' pensions; and that miners' widows' pensions should be restored.

In the case of widows' pensions, it was proposed to ineiease the pension of widows with dependent children from 10/ to £1 a week, the pension in respect of children remaining at 10/ a week. The Government also intended to enable deserted wives with dependent children to qualify for pensions on the same basis as widows. It was proposed to provide a pension for invalids— that is, persons permanently incapacitated for employment—at the rate of £1 a weekplus 10/ for a wife and 10/ for each child under 16 years of age, the income qualification to be the same as for an old age pension.

In the of familv allowances the maximum income qualification was to be restored to £4 per week. To provide for these increases for nine months of the current year, and also the normal expansion, the vote for pension- ha# been increased by £1 710 - 000/' stated Air. Xash.