Jane Wrightson: Retirement Commissioner calls for government to strengthen retirement income system

The Retirement Commission's calling on leaders to strengthen our retirement income system while we can.

It's retirement income policy review's found a longer-term political focus is needed to ensure future generations' certainty. 

It makes 12 recommendations, from moving more quickly to implement Kiwisaver reforms to harder strategies such as a new cross-party accord. 

Commissioner Jane Wrightson says this issue should be thought about holistically.  

She says we have time to make changes, adding there will be a million people over 65 by 2029, and 1.5-million by the 2050s. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Retirement Commissioner is pushing for changes to key we
savor at no extra cost to the taxpay And how
this would happen would be to increase the government's key
we save a contribution for people on lower incomes by
taking it away from people on higher incomes. Jane Wrightson
is the Retirement commission and with us now, Hyjane, Oh, you.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Make me sound so mean, Hello, Heather, Well.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
It does it does? I mean, yeah, I mean Peter
to pay Paul, but Paul obviously needs it. So at
what point do you cut Peter off?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
You cut Peter off at a relatively higher income level.
So what happened earlier this year is that the government
decided to reduce its contribution to two hundred and fifty
dollars a year. Right, So people on higher incomes that's nothing.
It's no motivation, it's no incentives, it's just nothing. So
people on lower incomes it makes a higher proportion of

(00:51):
their retirement savings over time. So the dilemma we face
when we published our review today, which is quite a
wide ranging look at what needs to change, is that
there are a couple of things that are really quite important.
One is thinking harder around parental even how to cover
that and fund that properly so that people taking leave
don't lose too much of their savings ability. And thinking

(01:14):
also about temporary migrants and how to attract them and
to stay in New Zealand, and that would be to
actually a joining gimisava, which I can't currently do. So
the problem about all that was, of course, we sit
at a fiscal envelope. As they say, the total government
spend on government contributions right now is about five hundred
and forty five million. Now I knew if I went

(01:36):
to Minister Willis and said could I have a few
squillion dollars to do something new, she would laugh at me,
so as she does with everybody else who says could
I have a few squillion dollars? So we worked within
the fiscal envelope and thought quite hard about whether where
the government contributions matter the most right and they matter
the most to people on lower income, For people that

(01:57):
earning less than thirty thousand, the government contribution and used
to be about fifteen or twenty percent of their total
key savor balance at age sixty five, and following the
changes in this year's budget, it's going to be around
a heaven. For people over one hundred and eighty thousand
now don't get anything because that was wiped. So the
rich people are all dune. And for members earning say

(02:20):
over one hundred thousand dollars a year, the government contribution
fell from about five percent of people's balance to about
one percent. And I don't know anybody earning six figures
who thinks that two fifty dollars a year is meaningful. Therefore,
let's put it somewhere where it is meaningful.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
That's a good point rather John, thank you very much.
I do appreciate your time so much. As Jane write
some Deborah Retirement Commissioner Deborah is on my Brain. For
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