SUPERANNUATION INQUIRY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27040, 15 May 1953, Page 10

SUPERANNUATION INQUIRY

Changes In Board Urged

RETIRED CONSTABLE’S SUBMISSIONS (Hew Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 14. The Government Superannuation Board was unnecessarily overloaded with heads of Government departments, and was incomplete without representation of superannuitants, said a former member of the old Public Service Superannuation Board, Mr W. A. Calwell, of Christchurch, to the Government Superannuation Inquiry Committee in Wellington today. Mr Calwell also suggested some radical changes in methods of calculating superannuation benefits. Mr Calwell said he was a retired constable, a Justice of the Peace, and, a former police representative on the Public Service Superannuation Board. The Government Superannuation Board is made up of the Minister ot Finance, the heads of the Treasury, Education. Police, Post apd Telegraph, and Railways Departments, the chairman of the Public Service Commission, and six representatives of staff organisations. Mr Calwell's suggested membership was the Minister of Finance, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director-General of Health, the manager of the Government Life Insurance Office, two superannuitants, and six staff representatives. Mr W. L Comrie, Controller flf the Government Superannuation Division: Do you seriously suggest the board should comprise eight employees and four employers? Mr Calwell: Yes. Mr Comrie: Why remove the departmental heads? Mr Calwell: They don’t do much, al MrComrie: That’s your experience, is it? Mr Calwell: Yes. I was there. In his submissions Mr Calwell said the present method of calculating the superannuation pension on the length of service, plus the salary over the previous five years, was so inequitable that he thought it should be abandoned. If the present system was designed so that the pension should bear a definite relationship to the amount contributed to the superannuation fund, it had completely failed in its object, he said. Mr Calwell suggested that, to overcome anomalies, the pension should be based on an amount obtained by dividing the total contributions by the number of years between retirement and the age of 70 years, which he took as the expectation of life. The division should cease at the age of 65, so that the amotint was never divided by a figure lower than five. The amount obtained bv the division might be multiplied by any figure to get the amount of the pension. Retirement before 60 years of age should be discouraged, and be encouraged at 65, Mr Calwell said.