Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on Te Pāti Māori saying Māori should receive New Zealand Superannuation early

Labour is staying tight-lipped, as Te Pāti Māori says Māori should receive New Zealand Superannuation seven to 10 years before everyone else.

Meanwhile, the Green Party supports lowering the age of eligibility for Super for some groups in society.

NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny says this has prompted a divided response.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
By the way, on the Trump tariffs thing, obviously there's
been a bit of talk about Trump wanting to put
some tariffs on pharmaceutical products and stuff like that. So
we have a chat to doctor Graham Jarvis of Medicines
New Zealand. He's the CEO there be with us in
around about twenty minutes time or thereabouts. Right now, it's
eighteen past six. Now, as we've been discussing, the Marhori
Party want Marty to be able to receive the pension.
It's ten years earlier than the rest of us, so

(00:22):
all of us get it at sixty five and they
want Marty to get it at fifty five. Genative Trainey
as The Herald's Wellington business editor and with us.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now, how do you name hey Heather? All right?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
How did the guardians of the Superfund react when they
heard this completely copped idea?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, I think when the Tapati Mahri co leader Rahbari
Wayitetti asked the guardians, they were a bit shocked. Because
the Superfund is in charge of managing the country's sovereign
wealth fund that will help pay for super in the future.
It's not responsible for setting policy around who should receive

(00:57):
you know, n Z super and win. But as always
have in these select committee meetings that the politicians run,
they always try to use them to promote their own policies.
And that's exactly what to Party Mary did in this one.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Now, explain to me, because this is this is the
this is the thing that is perplexingly why doesn't Labor
just kill us at idea immediately?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, Look, that is the key question, and that's what
really makes us an issue. To Party Marti has had
this policy for some time. It believes that age should
be lower because Marty's life expectancy is lower, you know,
and that is that is correct, It is about eight
years lower than Pakiha. But then also Asian people have

(01:42):
higher life expectancy, the European and others. So it starts
to get awfully difficult when you look at the different
races and different life expectancies. But that's that's Party Marti's view. Interestingly,
Labor did not shoot this idea down straight away. Now
the reason you think it might is because this is
a very controversial view and Labor obviously tries to pitch

(02:06):
for that middle ground. I'm not sure how well this
policy would go down with the middle ground. But interestingly
I wrote the story that you know said Labor was
fairly tight lipped on the issue. But since then, just
short just this afternoon, the Labor Party came back to
me and said, oh, we're updating our position and they've
categorically said we have no plans to change the age

(02:30):
of super yeah, and would not support targeting eligibility on
the basis of ethnic.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
So I mean fair to say that what this was
most likely is just a kind of I don't want
to say she's green, because she's not green, but just
a reasonably new MP in Barbara Edmonds trying to feel
her way politically on this right, So just a tiny
misstep from her rather than anything massive.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I'm not too sure what happened at the Labor Party side.
I'm not really really too sure. But I think the
bigger picture here is that we have seen with this
coalition government that you know, we if we dismiss minor
parties policies because we think, oh, well, that's never going
to happen, you know, you never know what can happen

(03:10):
if the major parties do end up needing that the
minor parties support going into government.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
That's a fair point that you make actually, Thanks very much.
Ja Toperney, the Heralds Wellington Business Editor. For more from
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