Letters: Hard to save for retirement

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Re raising the retirement age for New Zealand Superannuation to 67 (Rotorua Daily Post, December 15.)

It is interesting to note that the commissioners and others in power who advise us ordinary folk about how to save our monies and our pensions have large government incomes with built in pension schemes. Their income is quite a lot larger than our ordinary incomes. They can afford to live it up and still have their retirement looked after, whereas ordinary people have just enough to live on and find it difficult to save.

As to the pension being unaffordable to NZ Inc, I understood that Kiwisaver was to take up the slack and help with the costs of providing pensioners with an income. Also what about about the the Cullen Fund? It already has a few billions in kitty and our Minister of Finance is going to start putting more money in next year. This was sold to NZ Inc on the proviso that it will also help with the cost of our pensions well into the future.

What about the effect of inflation on our savings, remembering these savings are over a 40-year period. We put our money into the bank or scheme ie Kiwisaver when the money worth say $1 would purchase 3 widgets and 20 to 30 years later when we start to draw down the saving $1 will only purchase one widget due to inflation. I notice that this aspect of saving is not dwelt upon when savings schemes are sold to our general population.

JOHN SMALE
Rotorua

Congratulations are in order for local MP Todd McClay, for stepping up a place in the National Party pecking order. It's great that McClay will continue to push kiwifruit and forestry trade. It's also great to read that he will be lobbying Minister Maggie Barry about getting our earthquake damaged museum repaired to ensure that our region's most treasured taonga has a home again.

However, there was one huge gap in McClay's list of priorities, and that was people.

Channeling Gandhi, McClay's old boss and former Prime Minister John Key once said: "We should be proud to be a country that looks after its most vulnerable citizens." Well, by this standard, the National Party and McClay should be ashamed.

We saw it with Te Puea Marae in Auckland and now, on the cover of Monday's Rotorua Daily Post, we see it with Rotorua's Apumoana Marae. We see marae stepping up where the National government have failed to provide housing for its citizens. This failure by the National Government is in blatant disregard to a UN treaty for which New Zealand is a signatory, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which states that access to housing is a human right. A right which has been eroded under the National government.

Perhaps while McClay is in Wellington, after seeing Minister Barry about the museum, he could also see his old buddy, Social Housing Minister Amy Adams, to lobby her to find a solution on how to house our other treasured taonga, our people.

RYAN GRAY
Rotorua