David Seymour: Associate Finance Minister, ACT leader on Luxon’s plan to raise the pension age

Yesterday’s budget confirmed there will be no changes to superannuation.

Means testing for KiwiSaver input’s in, but nothing for super.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon reaffirmed his party’s support for raising the retirement age to 67.

But his deputy and coalition partner Winston Peters doesn’t agree.

Associate Finance Minister and ACT Party leader David Seymour talks to Heather du Plessis-Allan about the idea.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Chris Luckson has twice said today that he wants to
raise the retirement age to sixty seven. Now, this is
after pulling more government support out of our other retirement scheme. Key,
we savor a yesterday's budget. Chris Luckson says they'll take
the proposal to next year's election. I think we should
try the capable of the cleanest way to deal with that.
I think elections exactly again. But of course there's a catch,

(00:22):
and that catch would be Winston Peters. David Seymour is
the other leader of the other coalition party, the ACT Party,
and with us. Now, hey, David, hey, ever, would you
support going to sixty seven?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Well, we've campaigned on it for years, and often to
our cost. I suspect that people have been turned off
voting ACT because there's some truths that are expensive to
tell politically. But the reality is that our country now
has a major problem with balancing the budgets over the

(00:55):
next decade and beyond. That's because every year about sixty
five people turned sixty five and live longer, and the
number of children they had to keep paying taxes is
less than it was in say, the nineteen sixties. When
this whole thing became the norm. So I believe it's

(01:16):
actually essential that we face up to it and change
of saying it for a long time. I remember when
the National Party said they were going ho for the change,
but they wanted to start it in twenty thirty seven.
That was in twenty seventeen, twenty years delay on the policy,
and then of course a few years went by and

(01:36):
they said, well, look we might do it by twenty
forty four. So of course is now coming back into
the present and saying we've got to start being honest
with each other about our future. Then I would support
that and welcome to the position.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I mean, I think the difficulty you guys are going
to have is that there is so much welfare that's
just handed out. I feel like that's social contract. To
touch that, you would probably have to wind back a
whole lot of other welfare first to save money, don't
you think.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, I just think the fact that turning away from retirement,
one in six New Zealanders right now are on some
sort of benefit. Now, I believe that there should be
something for people who genuinely have a disability or can't work.
In fact, I think there's people in those circumstances who

(02:28):
should have more. But I refuse to believe that one
in six working age New Zealanders unable to work. It's
just an outrage, really, and that's why the biggest item
on the government budget. I mean, we're spending about one
hundred and forty five billion dollars on everything in the budget,
but over forty five of that one hundred and forty

(02:48):
five is basically super and benefits of various sorts.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Are you counting things like the winter energy payment, the
best start payment, working for faver, like the whole.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Lot of it. I'm counting those, but I'm also counting
things like soule parent support, which many listeners will know
as the DPB job seeker many will know as the DOLE.
You know, you add it all together, and there's things
like you know, invalids and veterans and things that I
think we should absolutely stand behind and ideally increase, but

(03:23):
they're one in six is far too many. And frankly,
you know, I look around Parliament and I see it
appears to be possible for people to work well past
sixty five. So I think it's time for everyone to
get on board.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Okay, now, did you realize, because Jonesy obviously didn't realize,
did you realize that there's no tap on how much
these people can spend on assets and then claim the
twenty percent tax incentive?

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, yeah, absolutely, I mean, I you know, I've seen
people criticize that feature, but if you think about it,
there's no risk to the government. If people end up
doing more investment in capital equipment than we thought, then
that's true. That's that's more money, that more investment that

(04:08):
we won't be able to text as much. But overall
there's still more investments, so it's not as they were
going to be worse off.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
But is it not a chance that the six point
six that you've set aside billion dollars obviously over four
years blows out?

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Well, I mean there is, but it's also true that
if that happened, it's because there's even more investment than
we thought and we'll actually get more tax off at
in the long run.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
So how did Joe not realize that that's.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Ability no cap Look, I mean, I think it may
see me as the nerdy end of the of the
government spectrum, but sometimes you know, it has its advantages.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
It was very magnanimous of you well, said David Seymour,
AX Party leader. I think what we're trying.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
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