Thursday, October 27, 2011



The other half of the policy

Labour has announced the other half of their retirement and savings policy: compulsory KiwiSaver, with gradually increasing employer contributions. That's not a terrible idea, and the latter is something they should have been doing from the beginning. The question is why they decided to tie it to a third rail increase in the retirement age. Its not as if the two parts go together, after all. You don't need to increase the retirement age to boost KiwiSaver, and neither half adds anything to the other. So why?

And again, I'm drawn to my earlier conclusion: this is simply a cynical political ploy to wedge National and boost Winston, an empty threat designed purely to be vetoed. You can admire the Machiavellian evil of it, but I prefer my political parties to be less deceitful in their promises.