Andrew Dickens: We need to do something about the retirement age

With National finally releasing its fiscal policy it’s easy to generalise the plan as more of the same.

We’ve already seen and the only difference with Labour is that they are in love with pay equity which comes at a huge cost and leaves the whole balancing act with very little wriggle room.

But the enormous ogre under the bridge is the rapidly expanding cost of superannuation.

How long are we going to talk in circles about this.

ACT has said lets raise it to 67. That’s not crazy.

In Australia, Denmark, Iceland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States and Norway it’s 67. In the UK it’s 66 but planned to go to 68.

Canada and Japan are like us but more and more we’re becoming outliers.

All it takes are political leaders saying let’s do it.

David Seymour has. Chris Hipkins hasn’t and now National is saying we’ll do it if everyone else wants to do it.

National, Labour and New Zealand First are running scared because they’re scared of how older people will react.

But if you’re already getting it what’s your beef? You can’t sit there and complain about our books and being resistant to it.

I’m in my 60s. It won’t affect me so what’s to worry about.

50-year-olds will be jittery about it.

Under 40s should already know the issue and should be preparing for a new eventuality.

But the leaders of our biggest parties seem unable to lead if some people might react negatively which doesn’t seem like leadership to me.

Andrew Dickens is a broadcaster with Newstalk ZB. - where this article was sourced.