EFFECT ON WOMEN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19622, 3 May 1938, Page 5

EFFECT ON WOMEN

PENSIONS PROPOSALS HARDSHIPS SUGGESTED EI.ICIIBII.ITV AGE i PLEA FOR REDUCTION (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day.

The effect of • the Government’s pensions proposals on women, was outlined by Mrs. A. ,M. Hutchinson and Mrs. Rhoda Bloodworth, who, on behalf of the New Zealand Society for . the Protection of Women and Children, gave evidence yesterday afternoon before the Parliamentary Committee which is investigating the national superannuation and health scheme. ’

Chief among several recommendations made by the society was the lowering to 55 years of the age at which payments became available under the Government’s superannuation scheme. Cases were quoted where the present age qualification of 60 , imposed- a great hardship, and where* payments'were limited or refused altogether by the Pensions Department because of anomalies in the existing law.

It was stressed that few employers desired to engage any woman in industry over 50 vears of age, but even were she qualified to do so and her wages exceeded the amount- allowed for a couple, the husband would then be disqualified for the pension and she would have to support him too. By altering the age to 55 for all women, the Government would be maintaining the five years’ difference in the retiring age of men and women already recognised in existing legislation.

Other recommendations made by the society dealt largely with anomalies in payments of the familyallowance and the invalidity pension, and also with the position of married women living apart from their husbands, either as a result of legal separation or desertion.

PUBLIC SERVICE VIEWS CROSSFIRE AT INQUIRY QUERIES BY MR SAVAGE (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. During further evidence yesterday the Parliamentary committee which is investigating the national superannuation and health scheme, Mr. F. W. Millar, the hon. secretary of the central committee of the combined public service organisations, was asked by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, if he would be surprised to, know that Mr. Savage had received a communication- from one substantial branch of the public service congratulating the Government on its proposals. Mr. Millar: I think the public service as a whole would say the same thing. You made a statement, sir, about the position of public servants. Mr. Savage: Oh yes. That statement is getting moss on it, but I did not say for one moment that I would exempt anyone from the taxation. I am not asking the public servants to join this scheme, but I would remind you that members of the public have been paying into various public service funds for years, and will have to go on doing so. The moment the Government decides to do something for the people who have been paying for generations past, there seems to be objection to it. Is it not a fact that the people have paid some £7,000,000 to £9,000,000 into various public service funds?

Mr. Millar said that the State had to pay large amounts because of defects in the past.

Mr. Savage: You have received an assurance that the Government is ,>oing to face up to the position of the superannuation funds. Mr. Millar: Yes. That is so.

TEACHERS’ APPROVAL SAFEGUARDING CHILDR TIN (Pur Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Emphatic support for the Government’s health insurance proposals, was expressed on behalf of 6000 school teachers by the New Zealand Educational Institute in a statement presented to the Parliamentary committee yesterday by Mr. F. L. Coombes and Mr. W. C Pryor. The institute, after welcoming the provisions made in the Government's proposals for safeguarding the health of children, expressed the opinion that it was impossible for the medical profession, as at present organised, even to pretend to cope with the problems of civic fitness and social health. The only way to overcome the causes of ill-health and disease was to mobilise the medical agencies, hospitals and the medical profession along preventive lines. Expense might be involved in securing this objective, but both economically and socially it would be disastrously costly to neglect it.