As a Kiwi would you pay a couple of dollars a week into an All Black Support Fund? Possibly. How about a couple of dollars a week to prop up The Wallabies, England or Les Bleus? Not bloody likely!
And so to the question of NZ pensions.
Contrary to what many believe, pensions in NZ are not paid out of a pot of tax you contributed to during your working life. That’s long gone: the governments you laboured under have spent it.
Your pension right now is paid out from the taxes paid in by today’s workers, of which there are approximately three million, supporting 829,000 retirees.
Looking at the demographic split, currently 83 per cent of these retirees are European/Pākehā, as are 1.9 million, or 68 per cent of the three million workers supporting them but no one is currently objecting much to this imbalance, so all is currently well.
But what’s going to happen over the next 25 years as the ratio of total workers to retirees falls sharply from the current 3.5:1 to an estimated 2.5:1 by 2050 and a much higher number of those workers are non-European/Pākehā?
By 2050, the number of European/Pākehā retirees increases to 945,000 people, but the number of European/Pākehā workers stays roughly the same at 1.9 million and, by then, they will constitute only 50 per cent of the workforce at best.
So, as a non-European/Pākehā taxpayer, you might reasonably ask the question, ‘Why should I support these European/Pākehā pensioners who are not my people. Why can’t they look after themselves?’
This is a political hot potato likely to cause significant social unrest. At the moment no one focusses on it but expect Māori, Indians, Chinese and others to become more and more agitated as the years pass, especially as the politicians representing these ethnic groups sniff an opportunity to win votes.
‘Why should you pay for these old, Pākehā dudes, living large on the pension your taxes are funding? You’re from Mumbai, Shanghai or South Auckland and they never did anything for you,’ is a political manifesto likely to cause more racial unrest and put more pressure on the concept of universal pensions than all of the other factors such as overall affordability and pensionable age that we’re currently worrying about.
Your pension right now is paid out from the taxes paid in by today’s workers, of which there are approximately three million, supporting 829,000 retirees.
Looking at the demographic split, currently 83 per cent of these retirees are European/Pākehā, as are 1.9 million, or 68 per cent of the three million workers supporting them but no one is currently objecting much to this imbalance, so all is currently well.
But what’s going to happen over the next 25 years as the ratio of total workers to retirees falls sharply from the current 3.5:1 to an estimated 2.5:1 by 2050 and a much higher number of those workers are non-European/Pākehā?
By 2050, the number of European/Pākehā retirees increases to 945,000 people, but the number of European/Pākehā workers stays roughly the same at 1.9 million and, by then, they will constitute only 50 per cent of the workforce at best.
So, as a non-European/Pākehā taxpayer, you might reasonably ask the question, ‘Why should I support these European/Pākehā pensioners who are not my people. Why can’t they look after themselves?’
This is a political hot potato likely to cause significant social unrest. At the moment no one focusses on it but expect Māori, Indians, Chinese and others to become more and more agitated as the years pass, especially as the politicians representing these ethnic groups sniff an opportunity to win votes.
‘Why should you pay for these old, Pākehā dudes, living large on the pension your taxes are funding? You’re from Mumbai, Shanghai or South Auckland and they never did anything for you,’ is a political manifesto likely to cause more racial unrest and put more pressure on the concept of universal pensions than all of the other factors such as overall affordability and pensionable age that we’re currently worrying about.
7 comments:
You are supposing that the current identity politics will continue into 2050? That will is far from clear.
But there are things we should be doing now to make certain that identity politics does not continue: Rebuild the national pride around the fact that the settling founders of NZ were the most ‘progressive’ and open-minded the world had ever seen, so progressive that very early Maori and British came together as equals under the law, so progressive that very early the vote was extended to women.
Build onto this old history that modern NZ has traditionally been one of the least racist nations in the world, a place where racial minorities used to say that their race has never mattered less.
That is what NZ was like until the activists and identitarians grabbed power (and before they tried to change the meaning of ‘racism’). We must continue to demonstrate their corruption and the contradictions in their idiotic views. And we must stress that these views do not represent NZ.
If new, non-European arrivals feel safe and welcome here, if they are scooped up and included by the good, old ‘real’ NZ, then the neighbourliness, the sense that we’re in this together and do best when we look after each other — well, then we stand a chance of defusing the idiots among us. And we create the possibility that the NZers of 2050 will be looking at each other as neighbours, not as enemies, whatever their national or ethnic origins.
Those old pakeha dudes likely built and maintained the infrastructure those newer "kiwis" now enjoy.
Who are the freeloaders?
This issue reminds us that a nation's immigration must be built on integration - not separatism .
Moreover, the real question to worry new migrants is why their hard - earned money should be taxed to flow towards Iwi /Maori - i.e. always in one direction and in perpetuity - based on a document from 1840 which did not make this demand,
As one of these 'pensioners', I could, at 79, still be active and meaningfully contributing in the workforce.
You know, paying tax to pay myself.
Ageism is a major problem.
There is a huge pool of untapped capability, consigned to the 'sitting in your armchair, dribbling out of the corner of your mouth' mentality that seems to kick in at 65 years of age.
And we supposedly have critical skill shortages in certain areas.
We have lost the ability, as a nation, to think laterally.
No 8 wire, anyone?
Ameni
Eldery NZer's, of all ethnicities, contribute hugely as volunteers, contributing $9 billion annually according to government sources. Start looking at the generation of welfare recipients who don't contribute to NZ society but have their hands out all the same.
Agree Anon 6-51. A lot of volunteer work is done by retirees.
When National super was Started. We were given the choice Be a Member and pay into it through our Taxes. Like an Insurance scheme. It was voluntary not everyone joined. The Money was put in a Special Account under Government control. After a few years the Government of the day needed Money they did not have so the transferred the Superannuation into the Consolidated Fund and spent it. Now We are held to be an Expense on the Taxpayer along with those who did not join the Scheme or arrived later as Immigrants.
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