PM Suffering Memory Fade Over National’s Super Back Flips
Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First
Leader
Member of Parliament for Northland
7 MARCH
2017
PM SUFFERING MEMORY FADE OVER NATIONAL’S SUPER BACK FLIPS
National’s record of back flips over NZ Superannuation show they cannot be trusted and that won’t change with Prime Minister Bill English’s plan to increase the age of eligibility to 67, says New Zealand First leader and Northland Member of Parliament, Rt Hon Winston Peters.
“If Mr English had his way he would scrap NZ Super entirely; he has never liked it.
“In Parliament today he displayed either selective memory or a sad case of amnesia over National’s NZ Super performance.
“He has been an MP since 1990; in 1996 he became health minister and in 1999 finance minister yet today he acted as though he wasn’t there, as if saying, ‘I know nothing.’
“But New Zealanders will be asking why they should trust National when this party made a 1990 election promise to raise the age to 65 over a 20 year period in annual increases of three months which after the election they switched to eight years?
“New Zealanders will want to know why they should trust National when they promised to get rid of the surtax and instead increased it.
“Or when, in 1996, National promised to maintain NZ Super and then after breaking the coalition deal with New Zealand First in 1998, cut superannuation from 65 percent of the net average wage to 60 per cent.
“How can New Zealanders trust National when they promised not to change superannuation settings in 2008, then stopped government contributions into the Cullen Fund, and then started taxing it?
“The only party that can be trusted on NZ Super is New Zealand First – and voters will remember that,” says Mr Peters.
ENDS