INCREASE IN PENSIONS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29170, 2 April 1960, Page 12

INCREASE IN PENSIONS

“Bonus” Benefit Incorporated

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 1. The Minister of Social Security (Miss Howard) announced tonight- that the Government had decided to incorporate the 5s a week increase in the standard rates of all those who received the “bonus” benefits last Christmas.

The increase will date from March 30. Legislation to confirm the decision will come before Parliament next session, and include similar provision for war pensioners eligible to receive the additional payment. The civil pensions affected are those for which there is a means test—the age, sickness and unemployment payments and the widows’ and miners’ pensions. Universal superannuation and family allowances are not affected.

The payments will be made retrospectively after the passing of the legislation. Miss Howard made the Announcement in a broadcast speech tonight on the twenty-first anniversary of the operation of the Social Security Act. "Cash benefits are now paid for 1,037,000 people,” she said. “That means that almost one in every two New Zealanders is now receiving a cash benefit, quite apart from health benefits. “Only now, on social security’s twenty-first birthday, have we sufficient perspective to see what it has meant to New Zealand,” she said. “It has made us free from want and free from fear. By neutralising the bad luck which can come our way through no fault of our own, it has made us safe.

“Now that social security has proved itself, I can think of no better description than that used by Mr Savage 21 years ago: ‘Social security is applied Christianity’,” Miss Howard concluded.