An unwise guarantee

cynical position to take and one the Labour leader could live to regret.

New Zealand will somehow need to figure out a way to pay our ever-growing pension bill as our population ages.

Retirement Commissioner Dianne Maxwell has sounded a stark warning of the effect on the country’s balance sheet as the number of over 65s doubles in the next three decades, to 1.4 million.

Over that time, she expected the cost of New Zealand’s universal superannuation scheme to triple from $11 billion a year to $36b.

Ardern says to cover this cost, Labour would resume contributions to the fund designed by Sir Michael Cullen, finance minister in the previous Labour-led Government, to help pay pension costs in the future.

In a short-sighted move, Key’s Government stopped contributions when the Global Financial Crisis hit.

Despite telling us how strong the economy is, the Government has yet to resume regular payments and the fund is worth about what Maxwell says super will cost each year by 2047.

The only way around Ardern’s promise, should the super gratuity become totally unaffordable, would be for her to slash pensions or introduce means testing, two unlikely scenarios for a Government of the left.

Ardern was chided in the leaders’ debate by Prime Minister Bill English, who told her she was letting down her generation, ‘‘because they are going to have to pay the bill’’.

English was right, but his remarks were hypocritical.

This year, after Key’s exit, English announced the retirement age would rise to 67, starting gradually in 2037.

No-one born before 1972 would be affected.

So, that’s nobody from the all important and likely-to-vote baby-boomer group courted by politicians.

Meanwhile, both major parties continue to ignore Maxwell’s call for a retirement age of 67 to be phased in by 2034, with help offered to those forced out of the workforce.

Don’t expect her idea to be acted on, as the major parties continued their head-in-the-sand approach, an approach that one day we will all regret.