Labour re-commits to not raising retirement age

Labour is promising, again, to keep the retirement age at 65.

It’s also stepped up the attack lines on National and ACT in the party’s congress that kicked off this weekend.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson set the scene for deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni at the party’s congress, telling hundreds of Labour Party delegates the National government would be a “coalition of cuts”.

“Tax cuts, cuts to services, cutting back on the progress we have made as a country.”

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Sepuloni announced Labour’s first election policy – to keep the retirement the same, comparing it to National and ACT’s policies.

National’s policy was to progressively raise the age of superannuation eligibility to 67 from 2037, while ACT’s was to gradually increase the superannuation age to 67 at a rate of two months a year, from 2023/24.

Ardern was firm in 2021, despite a Treasury report warning of unsustainable future debt, saying the retirement age would not rise while she was in office.

Robertson also said Labour would not raise the age, when an OECD NZ economic survey in 2022 recommended increasing the eligibility age of 65 by linking it to life expectancy.

On Saturday, Sepuloni said New Zealand’s retirement policy “ensures settings remain stable and consistent, no-one misses out and Kiwis can look forward to retirement now and in the future under a Labour Government”.

“Labour is providing New Zealanders with certainty about their retirement income by maintaining NZ Super at its current setting,” she said.

Sepuloni said National and ACT were “out of touch” – echoing Robertson last week over National’s stance on the $5 prescription policy.

She also explicitly promised Labour would keep the Winter Energy Payment permanently and continue government contributions to the NZ super Fund.

MPs made a point throughout the first day of their congress to continually take aim at National and ACT.

Earlier, Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis warned that “everything is at stake”.

“Come the October election, it’s important to understand just how the opposition parties in Parliament right now threaten what has been built,” Davis said.

Robertson called the Opposition “like the most rubbish Marvel comic ever – Chris Luxon as Captain Cliché and his sidekick David Seymour as Reverse Robin Hood”.

“Stealing from the poor to give to the rich. And make no mistake, if there is a National/ACT government David Seymour wants to play a big role.”

While Sepuloni said: “The Labour Party will never have to use AI to create images of Pacific people in an attempt to make it look like we have the support of our community.”

Another theme of the congress was painting the “type of human being Chris Hipkins is”.

Davis told a story about Hipkins going to Len’s Pies bakery in Kaikohe during Waitangi week to buy “some Labour Party caviar – also known as a sausage roll”.

“Chris Hipkins… not only being relaxed and approachable, but genuine and authentic. No need for AI.”

In response, National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis said Labour was more interested in political attacks “than fixing our country”.

“Labour should be presenting New Zealanders with a plan to get them through the cost-of-living crisis. Instead, they are too busy trying to score some cheap political points by hypocritical scaremongering.

“We are committed to ensuring universal access to superannuation is protected and financially sustainable into the future, so the next generation of Kiwis can reap the same rewards,” she said.

Willis said National’s plan to gradually increase the age of eligibility to 67 would have the adjustments starting in 2044, “20 years after the legislation has passed”.

Willis said it was a sensible change that reflected that New Zealanders are living longer.

ACT also came out against Labour’s use of rough calculations to claim what Kiwis could lose under its opponent’s policies: Almost $100,000 in Government superannuation contributions by retirement, for a 30-year-old earning $78,527 a year, and accounting for compound interest.

The figure assumes National would agree to ACT’s policy to trim Government contributions, and that National would hike the retirement age to 67-years-old. It also doesn’t account for wage inflation, or for National and ACT’s other policies, such as tax cuts.

ACT leader David Seymour accused Labour of being “either financially illiterate or dishonest, because they ignored ACT’s generous tax cuts for working families”.

“ACT’s tax cuts dwarf the spending cuts Labour are on about because ACT would cut government waste, leaving every earner better off,” he said.