Helen’s pension plan
Helen has a cunning pension plan for her old age. Her massive parliamentary pension isn’t enough – so what will she be relying on? Your children!
I am a very firm advocate of means testing the NZ Superannuation. I think it is silly multi-millionaires get paid a welfare benefit.
Hati Tip: Whale Oil
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Tags: Helen Clark, superannuation, You Tube
May 26th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
So do I. It’s a first! I agree with you.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Speaking of benefits, I see dear corrupt leader and Cullen are about to increase benefit levels.
If (and it is a big if) they are going to target directly at the FEW genuine cases then I have little problem with it but they had better bloody not be giving this out across the board.
I do not want dole bludgers and those on the DPB getting more of my money when middle NZ (the poor bastards who pay all the tax) are struggling.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Talking about multimillionaires is a red herring. How many super rich actually apply for it? I am against income and asset testing. I would rather see superannuation paid back as tax by those with a good income in retirement. The trouble with testing is that it leads to hiding of assets and incomes. We would have an avoidance industry. I believe that is the case in Australia.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Nice Nosferatu impression too.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
“I am a very firm advocate of means testing the NZ Superannuation. I think it is silly multi-millionaires get paid a welfare benefit”.
So am I. More work for trust lawyers and structuring experts.
Bring it on.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
The first thing I thought when I heard this yesterday was is this the sort of person we want running the country? A career politician who needs her retirement subsidised by taxpayers! Amazing.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
We’ll all be relying on children in our old age. Doesn’t matter how much money you save for retirement if no one’s making anything for you to buy.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Hey I actually quite glad that Helen hasn’t bred. One of the few favours she’s done us. And I quote her … “Thank God”
May 26th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I blogged about this on Friday, and WhaleOil put together the vid after I tipped him off. I was absolutely gobsmacked by what she said, and did a bit of a double-take – it was one of those “did she say what I thought she said” moments! Just reflect on her words:
“”I don’t have children, but thank God most people do , and they’re going to be looking after me in my old age.”
Even after a weekend’s reflection, I find this an outrageous statement from Clark. She has been in Parliament, on the public purse for 27 years, and will retire with a gilt-edged superannuation package. She is one of the highest paid New Zealanders. She owns a number of properties. She does NOT need the support of my children and yours. I am a person of pretty modest means, but I am doing my best to make sure that I will not be a burden on my own children in my retirement, let alone anyone else’s children. However, Clark has a lifetime of socialist habits to break!
May 26th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Whoops – duplicate post!
May 26th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
someone send her and peter a naughty(PORN) DVD and she might get stimulated and bred , NO NO is the world readyNO it isnt , give her a gold edge pension, and banish them
May 26th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I do not have children, teddy bears are cheaper to run and I can throw them out the window when I feel like it,especially after a bad day talking shit. Thank you Peter. Love you Helen~!!
May 26th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
It’s a long bow to make that Helen Clark is wanting to retire on the sweat of our children. She was talking about baby boomer age New Zealanders in general needing to rely on the next generation to fund our pay as you go Superannuation.
If that’s the case she should be asking why so many young NZers are leaving and not returning – and doing something about that!
May 26th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Let’s not forget fatty Hunt our erstwhile high commissioner to Great Britain and Hampstead Heath who tried to sign on for the old age pension when he arrived in London. Of course how could he possibly manage on his income for that job and his parliamentary pension and the living allowances and free accommodation and the massive wine cellar he had installed when he arrived in London.
Hunt of course was the big daddy of the princes street branch that nurtured Clark and her girls into the best paying non jobs ever invented. Although in the case of Hunt it maybe should have been called the princess street branch. What a fine career, taxi chit king, the original minister of wine and cheese and the sitting in the car because it was raining while his septuagenarian monarch proved more of a man than he has ever been by toughing out a little rain shower.
What is the plural for succubus?
May 26th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Actually Bob, most of the very rich do apply for National Super – if only on the basis that they have been overtaxed to provide it and it gives them an opportunity to recoup something. One multi-millionaire of my aquaintance tells me that the annual amount paid refuels his boat once. It is a sacred cow we will sooner or later have to kill off because the diminishing base of taxpayers will revolt against an untargetted transfer of wealth that is unjustifiable by any measure.
May 26th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Michael E – look at the words again
”I don’t have children, but thank God most people do , and they’re going to be looking after me in my old age.”
I don’t think there’s any room for doubt – I mean – what else could “they’re going to be looking after me in my old age” mean?
May 26th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Michael E says:
My thoughts exactly. Aside from being amazed at the fact she left herself open for just the sort criticism she’s copping here – and rightly so – the more important question is surely whether there’ll be any “multi-millionaires get[ting] paid a welfare benefit” in a few years.
While there will no doubt be retirees with assets worth more than a million – the way things are going, anyone who owns a home, anywhere, will be a ‘paper’ millionaire in a few years – there won’t be too many with more liquid assets. They’ll all be overseas, paying less tax, enjoying better concessions on privately funded superannuation, and being paid salaries that realistically value their skills.
While in principle I support means testing of all benefits I’d prefer a NZ where most people were capable of taking care of themselves in their retirement – and at a level where they weren’t turning off the heaters in winter and freezing to death while sharing their Whiskas with Tiddles.
How we get there is the more pressing question, and I hope rather than asking the PM whether she thinks she deserves NZ Superannuation, interviewers start asking her how she plans to ensure the rest of us retire with the kind of cash we’ve been pumping into her Parliamentary superannuation her entire career.
May 26th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
So why Helen do you think you know best when it comes to parenting and smacking??
May 26th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Isn’t it annoying that we are paying additional tax for those that did not save for retirement and for those that did… knowing that we will likely never get the same benefit when we retire.. In fact the last generation that will receive a non means tested retirement will be Michael and Helen’s
May 26th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Helen is cancerous and corrosive, plus popular and competent; but in this instance I think she was actually trying to say that the children of today will keep the wheels of the economy turning in the future rather than funding her personally.
But given her pass record of relentlessly attack someone by twisting what they said, she deserve everything she gets!
What strikes me is that our Dear Leader appears a touch nervous these days.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Yes, it is ridiculous that super is universal (at least to the level that it is). I take Kate’s point about trusts and so forth (and there is no perfect solution) but it is just insane that the concept of hand up not hand out stops when you get old.
I am stunned that Cullen has increased the pension – how many super schemes do we need? National Super, Kiwisaver, Cullen fund…
People are living longer and costing more. We need to ween people off the state, not encourage them.
Unfortunate that touching super is political death. Another cost for my generation.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
That was way out of line and a bit of a low given that members of both parties and for that matter genders may not have children and quite frankly none of anyone’s business. What she was obviously referring to is that eventually the baby boomer generation in general is going to need someone to keep NZ society going once they are past the point of working.
Whether it is through the welfare state or private provision or private savings is something quite worthy of debate. Play the ball.
[DPF: If Helen is stupid enough to refer to the fact that she thinks other people's children will pay for her pension, then it is a fair topic. Personally I think it is an appalling attitude for any PM to have, regardless of whether they have children or not]
May 26th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Has anyone told Helen that there’s a pronounced demographic shift towards women having smaller families, later in life? I don’t think breeding our way to security in old age should be taken particularly seriously from anyone.
Still, nice to see Clark also big-noting over the Kahui case. Guess it’s so much easier when senior Police can’t turn around and tell her to STFU until she knows what the hell she’s talking about.
May 26th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Test
May 26th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Interfering in the operations of our police force has been one of the defining features of her tenure
May 26th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
I agree with you wholeheartedly on this one too David. I remember working at IRD years ago processing tax returns and seeing some people getting government super (which they had contributed to), national super and a wage as well, as they were still working. That was three sources of income, not counting any interest and dividends they may have been getting as well.
If people are fit and able, and want to keep working, why should the taxpayer give them extra support?
May 26th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
It was completely inappropriate for her to intrude into the matter.
And grossly hypocritical. She favours a half-hearted investigation into Paintergate, the Motorcade, Taito Philip Field, and the Pledge Card; but meanwhile is happy to direct the Police to return to a case which has already passed through the justice system.
Her comments were pure “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff” stuff. Not to say that she personally could have saved the twins, but after nine years of her government there are still people leading nasty, vicious little lives with no hope of anything better. Where was her helping hand *before* these children were murdered?
Clark’s involvement now, four months out from an election, smacks of depressing and cynical opportunism.
May 27th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Since the male population of this country did not have any children either, that will be even less people I will have to look after.
May 27th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Colonel Masters
What age were Macsyna King and Chris Kahui again. Are you blaming Helen Clark for their upbringing? And the upbringing of their parents? National, I’m sure, would have met up with these very people in the 90s. What did they do to halt the present tragedy? I thought so. Nothing, or this present tragedy would not have happened.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:43 am
No, I wanted to make these points:
1. She appeared to be directing the police to follow a certain path in their investigations;
2. She does not favour close police scrutiny when she or her cronies are in the gun;
3. This underclass is able to exist because, although her government might throw over $1,000 a week at such a household, it really does nothing in the long run to give them a “hand up”.
May 27th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Except for a very rudimentary measure, say, a bank balance, means testing is a step towards the kind of socialism most here rail against on a daily basis. The claims of “bludgers” and “millionaires” getting “extra” requires a high level of intrusion into average peoples lives to prove, at a time when they least would like it. The only way to let people be the free thinking, self regulating, persons they have claimed to be, and urged to be by everyone from the political right to the libertarian, is to give them the option of applying: with no more evidence than a passport or a birth certificate and a single account balance.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:05 am
I’m sure it is much simpler and less beaurocratic not to means test. And anyway those millionairs put much more into the kitty than most of us so it is really very childish to burble on the way this thread is in the main.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:47 am
She’s lying! We’re all her children aren’t we?
May 27th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Jum
To a certain extent I would blame Clark for their up bringing. She joined the conspiracy back in the 70’s with Wilson, Goodyer and others who thought the old idea of families was no longer appropriate and worked to break it down with fault free divorce, easy welfare to solo mothers, the family court etc.
It is a well known fact that children in NZ are up to 80 times more likely to be abused when in solo parent homes. So yes, she deliberately put policies in place that lead many families down this kamikaze course and the blood of many children is on her hands. She damn well should be blamed and castigated for it.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Speaking for myself, Jum, I’m blaming Helen Clark for her own public comments which (in my view) were unwise, and fairly or not, feed the perception that she’s putting political pressure on the Police. As I’ve said repeatedly both here and elsewhere, I have my doubts that the weak prosecution case against Chris Kahui would have been brought in the first place without the drum beat of media and political commentary that charges had to be laid against someone, anyone NOW. There are times when it is better that a case be done right, rather than done right now. A lesson Miss Clark appears not to have learned.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:58 am
bloody hell
I know you people aint that dumb
just shows how desperate you all are to attack anything she does
all she was doing was pointing out why WFF is important
children are very important to the economy
sheesh
May 27th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Anyone who advocates means testing the aged should be required to work for 6 months in publicly dealing with them on such matters. Also, it was figured out a long time ago it was more expensive not to pay a universal benefit.. Further, many ‘rich’ need it, as retired former high earners can be relatively poor; those who spend pay both income tax and GST. Where it is strange now, is that lower income people may pay much higher marginal rates of tax through benefit abatement.
May 27th, 2008 at 9:43 am
May I hazard a guess that perhaps the reason Kiwiblog lost out on the blog awards this year to Public Address is because of posts like these?
May 27th, 2008 at 10:11 am
How about this as a policy for superannuation.
Increase Super to say 70% of the average wage. but those who have put money aside for retirement have that entitlement directly indexed to their income, so that for every dollar earned over and above that threashold, 50 cents of that super is withheld.
A retired person earning the average wage through a combination of superannuation and investments would therefore get 85% of the superannuation.
A person who has a residual income equivalent to the average wage would still get 20% of the super, and a person would need to be on an income of 140% of the average wage before the entitlement to government super was dropped altogether.
Or look at as follows.
Assuming an average wage of 40k, a person who has made no provision for retirement would get 28K
A person who has made some provision with a latent income of 12k a year would get 34k per year
A person who has a latent income of 40K would get 48k per year
and a person earning over 56k would get no government assistance.
Such a system would enable more funds to go to those who need it, and less funds going to those who are more financially self sufficient.
The idea of universal untested super is something that this country cannot afford. Those who provide for their own retirement should be congratulated for doing so, but don’t expect the following generation to providea subsidy for you in the way you provided for your parents. There are too few of us and too many of you and we have our own retirements to worry about.