M.P.s Plan For Pensions

Northern Advocate, 5 December 1947, Page 4

M.P.s Plan For Pensions

'Class Legislation'

WELLINGTON, Fri. (P.A.).—Yesterday the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union denounced the pensions scheme for politicians passed by the recent session of Parliament. A statement issued by the watersiders said significance must be attached to the fact that the politicians, whose conscience had evidently pricked them, allowed only an absurdly brief time before the House rose hurriedly for the recess for people to express their undoubted opposition to the “grab.” ' PREFERENCE

The watersiders’ conference protested with the utmost vigour against what it regarded as a preferential pension scheme for politicians only.

The conference could not see any good reason for not paying benefits comparable with those bestowed by politicians upon themselves to any other group of the community..

With those democratic considerations in mind, the conference demanded that social security benefits and pensions, such as those which were due to war service, should be increased to the precise amount which politicians thought proper for theinselves. “The politicians who voted for. this measure may honestly feel that they need £8 a week when they retire or are rejected after a period of service in the House,” commented the president of the union (Mr Barnes), “but why should New Zealand politicians tell the world that they have the best social security scheme on earth—a scheme which allows only £2/5/- a week to everyone else provided that the beneficiary reaches the qualifying age? WORST FORM “Moreover, politicians may not have to wait until they reach advanced years before they are paid £8 a week. “Keep this in mind, and I ask the democratic people of New Zealand to do so, too. “The trade union movement is often accused bitterly by its critics of promoting class activity or class war. “I * say emphatically that what the politicians have done is class legislation in its worst form,” Mr Barnes concluded. Another delegate said the “guilty men” should know what unionists and the public thought of them. The creation of a provident fund instead of a pensions scheme to enable former members of Parliament to rehabilitate themselves as taxpayers was suggested by the president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce (Mr Gordon Stewart). The amount payable to each member on retiring, either voluntarily or involuntarily, from political life would be determined by the number of years he had been in parliament. Mr Stewart said he-did not oppose superannuation schemes properly financed by employers and employees, but in the Superannuation Act there was no actuarial basis for the politicians’ scheme. INDEPENDENT INQUIRY

An independent commission should have been appointed to inquire into the proposal and bring down a report which could be submitted to the electors.

“The reasons given by members of the Opposition for voting against the scheme were not convincing,” continued Mr Stewart. “The principal one was that the bill had not been introduced sufficiently early in the session. Apparently the bill was prepared by a committee from both sides of the House. Opponents of the bill should define their attitude' to the measure in no uncertain tei’ms. Do they intend to move for repeal in the next session of Parliament, or will they refuse to take the pension individually?”