LABOUR LEADER’S TOUR

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 9 March 1934, Page 4

LABOUR LEADER’S TOUR

ADDRESS AT WAIMATE. VIEWS ON SUPERANNUATION. (By Telsgraph—Press Association.} WAIMATE 1 , March 8. An attentive audience of about 200 heard Mr M. J. Savage expound Labour’s proposals' for a return of prosperity and passed a vote of .thanks for his address. Mr Savage attacked the superannuation system in New Zealand, characterising it as one of the greatest injustices of modern times. The Superannuation Act was not intended to. be on an actuarial basis, but provided for certain payments into, various funds by public servants, plus a Government subsidy, which was necessary to. keep the funds financially sound. Despite the availability of the Government actuary’s reports showing the exact subsidy necessary from time to time, and notwithstanding the promises of the sponsor of the legislation, Sir Joseph Ward, to the public servants that the funds could not fail so long as the Government fulfilled its guarantee, they found .that the Government had not made good its guarantee and had not kept its side of a sacred contract, committing a breach of trust with the public servants. The Government, said Mr Savage, had misled tht people for years into the belief that surpluses were shown in the public accounts, whereas actually the Government was not meeting its liabilities to the superannuation funds. Probably tilie most transparent piece of injustice was the treatment of those compulsorily retired before serving 35 years. The present allowance was based on an actuarial calculation estimated not to place an additional liability on the fund. The Government was now trying to unload some of its responsibility on to the public servants and using other sections of the community, which it had reduced 1 to still lower standards, as an argument in favour of what it was attempting .to do.