PENSIONS POLICY

Evening Star, Issue 18048, 16 August 1922, Page 1

PENSIONS POLICY

EXPENSES DOUBLED IN SEVEN YEARS. INQUIRY TO BE HELD. In his Budget speech last evening Mr Massey referred thus to pensions; The policy of our pension system and its increasing obligations on the public revenue has been receiving my special attention lor some lime. The expenditure on old age, widows’, and other civil free pensions had in the last seven yearn more than doubled, mainly the result of additional benefits and concessions from time to time. In reviewing the capacity of tine State to meet these charges it is necessary to look at the proportion to the whole of these and similar non-revemie-producing charges, which can be termed “social services,” and which are gradually over-weighting the ordinary revenue. If we take pensions, education, public health, special Acts, .eiu, interest and sinking fund charges — none of which can bo much reduced as things now stand—wo find' that the expenditure in 1921-22 amounted to £15,390,776, compared with £4,965,886 in 1914. Expenditure on other services can be reduced by rigid economy, but the cost of these social services can only bo brought to a duo proportion of the total by a, change in policy. Especially is tide so in dealing with pensions, as the present system of anmiallv amending and extending the Acts means that by . a gradual - process the charges imperceptibly increase without a due regard to tno fundamental principles that should govern their administration. The system, moreover, abounds in anomalies—such, for instance, as the payment of higher widows’ and children’s benefits in the “ free ” schemes than are obtainable by contributors to the subsidised service funds. I propose, therefore, to have an inquiry made into the whole question, in order to ascertain in what directions improvements in the administration of these important services can be brought about.