Thursday 27th Jan 2000

Rodney Hide Media Release -- Social Welfare

ACT Finance spokesman Rodney Hide said today that Alliance and Labour's pension hike was good news for pensioners but provided nothing for their children or grandchildren.

"There will be nothing in the government pot for them when they come to retire. In thirty years the number of retired will have more than doubled to over a million.

"Labour's 'ponzi' state fund is no solution. Jim Anderton is right about that.

"What we need to do is look after existing pensioners while helping New Zealanders now working to save for themselves. That's the enduring solution to providing for our elderly now and into the future.

"The government's knee-jerk pension increase without a policy to provide for the next generation and the one after that must increase the uncertainty of pension policy into the future and increase the scepticism with which New Zealanders view pension promises.

"Jim Anderton is now promising to look at how to pay for this increase over the long term.

"Once again the new Government has spent the cash today without working out how they are going to be pay for it tomorrow," concluded Rodney Hide.

ENDS

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