PENSIONS SCHEME

Northern Advocate, 19 October 1935, Page 13

PENSIONS SCHEME

— plan for dominion SWEDEN’S EXAMPLE QUOTED. flat RATE contributions. I 'Frovi Our Parliamentary Special .l WELLINGTON, This Day. ' The proposed national compulsory contributory pensions scheme was the subject of a report which was laid on the table of the House of Representatives yesterday by the Minister of, Finance, Mi’ Coates. The report states that compulsory contributory schemes existed in about 27 countries and in most cases the schemes made provision for invalidity, sickness, children, widows and orphans’ pensions and old age pensions. In general they applied to particular industries or groups of workers and did not cover the whole population. Compulsory national insurance covering all people, within specified ages had been applied in a small number of cases in Sweden and Switzerland. A compulsory national scheme had been considered and reported on for Australia, , but had so far not been adopted, Independent workers, presented a difficulty and the schemes mainly applied to wage earners or salaried employees. The scheme of compulsory national insurance adopted in Switzerland would probably be the most interesting one for New Zealand where, with certain exceptions, practically all between the ages of 16 and 63 v/ere liable.. The annual contributions varied according to income and the amount of pension was proportionate to the contributions paid according to fixed actuarial scale. Contributions consisted of an annual flat rate contribution, plus an additional contribution from those liable to income tax. The flat rate contributions were assessed by local assessment ; boards with the right to appeal to a pensions board. Contributory: pensions were given to anyone between 16 and 67 years of age incapacitated from work and to all persons reaching the age of 67 years.