POLICY STATED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 9 February 1943, Page 3

POLICY STATED

SUPPLEMENTARY AID OBJECTIVE OF THE R.S.A. While the Second N.Z.E.F. Association is asking for the basic military pension for 100 per cent disability to be raised from £2 to £5 10s, the Returned Services Association has been pressing for an increase of 25 per cent in economic and dependants’ pensions, says the “New Zealand Herald.” Discussing the matter, Mr J. W. Kendall, president of the Auckland Returned Services Association, said that in any proposal for an increased pension the cold facts of practicability and reasonableness must be carefully considered as well as what form increases should take so that the benefit would accrue in the most desirable manner. The present full pension of £2 a week was fixed in 1915, Soon alter that date it became obvious that th ! s amount was inadequate to maintain a fully disabled soldier and the R.S.A. began its crusade against successive Governments for a more liberal pension scheme. In 1923 the Bartholomew Commission decided that the increase which would give most benefit would be on an economic basis. It decided that if. an ex-serviceman receiving a pension of 40 per cent or more should have no other appreciable income or earning then he should be granted an economic pension of 30s a week—this in addition to pensions for, if married, his wife and dependent children under 16.

During the depression years this economic pension was reduced considerably, but steady and persistent pressure by the R.S.A. resulted in it being restored by stages to the original amount, and last year a bonus was added, making it 34s 6d a week. Dependents of an economic pension received for wife £l, and for dependent children 10s each a week. Thus a full economic pensioner with a wife and four children received—pension £2, economic £1 14s 6d, wife £l, children £2, total £6 14s 6d a week’. This was completely free of any social security, national security or any other form of taxation and was equivalent to about £7 14s gross a week.

“Even so, the present best is not good enough for our disabled exservicemen,” continued Mr Kendall. “The R.S.A. has been pressing for an increase of 25 per cent in economic and dependants’ pensions. Another proposal is to appoint arbitrators, 50 Der cent Government and 50 per cent R.S.A., to decide from time to time the amounts that should be paid, as economic and dependants’ pensions, having due regard to the fluctuation in the cost of living.

“The Government’s response has been to make an additional payment of 4s 6d a week on the economic pension, but nothing more for wives or children. Even this extra amount is not an increase, but is termed a ‘bonus’ so that by its very status it is purely a temporary payment. Under present conditions it can only be described as niggardly and the R.S.A. will continue its bombardment of the Government.

“The time has come when the whole war pension scheme needs review, but any proposals for alterations must be very carefully considered and must be governed by the dictates of common sense and practicability. “At the conference of the N.Z. R.S.A. in June the various aspects of the matter will be fully debated so that proposals may be forthcoming that will give the greatest benefit to present pensioners and to potential pension claimants of the new returning servicemen.”