CIVIL SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 144, 14 March 1932, Page 10

CIVIL SERVICE

Superannuated Members MEETING AT WELLINGTON The attitude of superannuated Public Servants toward any curtailment in their allowances was defined by Mr. W. M. Wright, chairman, in a statement to a special general meeting of the Wellington branch of the Association of Federated Superannuated Public Servants of New Zealand, on Friday evening. The discussion was taken in committee, after which it was announced that a committee had been set up to watch the interests of superannuated Public Servants and take any action if necessary. Mr. Wright contended that the position of a contributor paying so much into the fund in return for a statutory benefit was analogous to the purchase of an annuity. If a person went to a life insurance office to purchase a deferred annuity he paid a lump sum or made periodical payments for a specified annuity at a certain age. If, after he had entered into the contract, the insurance office attempted to reduce his annuity he would have a legal remedy. In that way the contracts were different from the payment of salaries, wages or pensions. At the present time • the statutory amount the Government was required to pay into the funds was in the case of the public service fund £86,000 a year, and in the case of the teachers’ fund £43,000 a. year. The railways fund received an amount sufficient to meet the difference between Its outgoings and income. At various times the Government had paid into the fund additional amounts voluntarily in order to meet the arrears of subsidies, but it had not increased the subsidies sufficiently to make the funds actuarily solvent. The amount paid by contributors into the three funds for the year ended March, 1931, was £592,561. At the present time there were 4899 public servants receiving superannuation benefits, and the average allowance was £lBl 15/- a year. During the period when the cost of living rose to over 60 per cent above the 1914 level superannuated public servants did not receive any compensation except in the case of those in receipt of less than £lOO a year, who were granted a cost-of-living bonus, which was not allowed to bring the allowance beyond the £lOO. All the other superannuitants had to suffer the hardship of those times. Salaries were increased, prices wore increased, profits were high, but the superannuitant stayed where he was. Now that the tide had turned and was at its ebb the superannuated public servant would be harshly treated if be were compelled to make a double sacrifice. “I say that because of the publication in the Press of certain suggestions,” Mr. Wright said.