Grey Power backs minor parties

Grey Power has spurned both major parties and wants its members to vote for one of three minor parties that support a rise in the pension.

The 84,000-strong group is urging its members to give their party vote in this year's election to Winston Peters' New Zealand First, Peter Dunne's United Future or Jim Anderton's Progressives.

All three parties support lifting superannuation for a married couple from the present 65 per cent of the average wage to at least 66 per cent.

Grey Power president Graham Stairmand told the organisation's annual conference in Rotorua yesterday that the country's 500,000 elderly voters would be taken seriously only if they voted as a block for a sympathetic potential coalition partner for Labour or National.

"You must consider that the power in the coalition rests with the minor coalition party, and if a minor party has policy plans that benefit you, then that is where your party vote should go," he said. His message was music to the ears of Winston Peters, the guest speaker at the conference's opening dinner last night. But it will not help Grey Power win friends when Prime Minister Helen Clark and National leader Don Brash address the conference today.

Mr Stairmand said Grey Power's two big "wins" under the mixed-member proportional (MMP) system had come through pressure from minority coalition partners - abolition of the super surtax when Mr Peters was in coalition with National in 1996, and lifting the married couple rate from 63 to 65 per cent thanks to Alliance pressure on Labour in 1999.

Labour's Senior Citizens Minister Ruth Dyson and National MP Tony Ryall told a political forum at the conference yesterday that their parties both supported the current law fixing the married couple rate on April 1 each year at between 65 and 72.5 per cent of the net average ordinary-time wage at the end of the previous year.

But Mr Stairmand said the actual rate needed to be at least 66 per cent to ensure that it did not drop below 65 per cent during the year.

"If you make an adjustment on the basis of inflation up to December, but you are making it in April, you already have consumer price increases up to March," he said.

"You get every other consumer price increase after that, so inevitably the level of super falls below the 65 per cent. Of the current possible coalition parties, NZ First has always had a policy of increasing the level of NZ Super gradually up to 72.5 per cent. United Future and the Progressives have a similar policy."

A spokesman for Social Development Minister Steve Maharey said it would cost $103 million a year to increase national super to 66 per cent of the average wage, and $775 million to lift it to 72.5 per cent.

Mr Stairmand, of Christchurch, said the net super rates - $393.56 a week for a couple and $255.91 for a single person living alone - were "just not sufficient for most".

"Living costs continue to escalate and many prime cuts of meat are beyond most ... " he said.

He said it was also unfair that a married couple received only $393.56 a week, whereas two unmarried pensioners sharing a house got $472.28.

"So the first thing you should do when you become a superannuitant is divorce your wife or husband."

United Future MP Marc Alexander received the biggest applause of the day when he promised to "get rid of the married rate".

"Everybody should get the individual rate," he said. "I do not want to see a married couple told to get divorced if you want more money. That is wrong."