JONATHAN SWIFT: A modest proposal for superannuation affordability
- Administrator
- Apr 5
- 2 min read
Being a practical scheme whereby New Zealand's retirees may personally contribute to the fiscal sustainability they currently enjoy
Superannuation reform is politically impossible, so let us not bother. Instead, let us fix the problem the way we have been fixing it anyway, just more honestly.
The pension costs more every year because New Zealanders keep getting older. The only reason things aren’t even worse is that younger people keep arriving from overseas and paying taxes. Treasury confirms this. Migrants more than pull their weight. The system works. We just need more of them, and faster. But Treasury’s report was sceptical that New Zealand could attract enough migrants to make things balance.
I propose Superannuation Sponsorship Pathways.
Every retiree collecting the pension would be required to personally recruit one working-age migrant. Think of it as adopting a taxpayer.
Start in Europe. Young Europeans have it worse than young New Zealanders. In Italy, every working-age person already helps cover almost 40% of a retiree. In Germany it is almost as bad. In New Zealand, each worker covers only about a quarter of a retiree. That is a bargain.
Immigration New Zealand should put up billboards across southern Europe. Tired of having too much of your pay taken by the elderly? Move to New Zealand. You’ll pay less. Young Italians are not stupid. They know how much of their pay disappears before they see it. Put the offer on a bus and let them do the maths.
Sponsored migrants must keep working and paying taxes. Each would get a yearly thank-you letter from their retiree explaining how the money was spent. A hip replacement. A power bill. Three weeks holidays in Tuscany the migrants just left. Top earners may receive a framed photo of their retiree enjoying retirement. Migrants are encouraged, but not yet required, to write back.
And if the migrant stopped earning enough, their sponsor would have to help find them a new job, find a replacement or take a pension cut. A 90-day trial period will apply. Appeals may be lodged but will not be read.
Retirees who recruit more than one migrant would earn bonuses: a pension top-up, early eligibility, or access to Gold Card Plus. That means priority seating on public transport, free scone upgrades, a dedicated supermarket checkout lane, and one airport lounge visit per sponsored migrant per year.
None of this would be necessary if we simply raised the pension age. But turkeys do not vote for an earlier Christmas.
This piece first appeared in the NZ Initiative newsletter
Good call! No one I know needs the pension and I doubt any of us give it all to charity. Raising the pension age or means testing it would be a start. We have overseen the biggest transfer of wealth from the young to the old through the simple fact that we bought houses cheaply and became rich through that. We locked the next generation out. How many Māoris own their own homes? Not many, which contributes to instability and poverty. Build more State houses and understand that shelter is so important to the wellbeing of a whole society…,
By the way, I've got expensive tastes so I've already recruited my 2 immigrants although during my years in immigration I brought in a few hundred so I demand a higher pension than everyone else.
I have written to two local MPs with costed viable and straightforward ways to mitiaget the short term idssue and solve the long term one. Neither understood and one was uninterested in anything outside her portfolio whihc begs the question when cabinet votes on subjects outside of your portfolio you do not represent your constituents you simply follow the herd and we wonder why NZ is heading to become the Zimbabwe of the S Pacific.
By the way, the heading for the subject matter is one "Johnathan Swift"
he was the author of "Gullible Travels" .....
visits in Lala-put or maybe it was Liliput.
I can recall it as being some such fairyland adventure....
Thats it in a nutshell.
Kiwis don't differ, apart from the individual incentives and complexions of those elected to distribute the proceeds .
Like Trump in the USA Thatcher had the best interests of the citizens at heart.
Australia has Pauline Hanson on the rise.... ???
NZ.... ah well shit happens