National would scrap super. scheme

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 16

National would scrap super. scheme

A National government would scrap the present Government’s superannuation scheme in favour of a “pay as you go” scheme, according to a 14-page illustrated booklet on the scheme produced by the National Party.

The Labour Government scheme will begin in April.

If the Govc-nment scheme had begun ii 1933, a man who started paying then as a young tradesman and retired last year would have accumulated $9900 in the fund — and his pension from it would be $13.46 a week, the booklet says. "Unless you are less than 17 years of age, and able to work for another 48 years, you will never draw a full pension from the Government scheme.”

Many people will not receive a pension from the scheme at all, it says, but the Government will collect s3Boom in the next 11 years. During this time, almost nobody will draw even a partial pension, and no-one will draw a full pension until 2023.

The scheme will require a "new army” of public servants, the cost of their salaries coming out of the scheme, it is claimed. The - Government will acquire new economic power of unprecedented strength and influence, with the possibility of nationalisation of industry “through the back door.” The booklet says that small businessmen and farmers who have formed companies will be penalised, as will young people if they go overseas to study (and there is a break in their contributions). Women who work for only a few years before marriage

will get only a "minute” pension. Inflationary demands for higher wages and prices are feared.

In a "pay as you go” scheme, money collected from the present working population would be distributed to the present superannuitants, providing an income related to today’s costs and beating inflation, the booklet says.