Super pledge

NZ First leader Winston Peters’ kind of election promise to abolish Section 70 of the Social Security Act if part of the next Government cannot be taken seriously as long as he doesn’t go into detail (Letters, February 19).

The bill NZ First put forward in 2015 proposed paying proportional NZ Super to everyone depending on years of New Zealand residency. It wasn’t a perfect bill but would have led to a fruitful discussion about the future of NZ Super and justice towards immigrants and returning Kiwis whose employer/ employee-funded overseas superannuations, similar to KiwiSaver, are literally confiscated by the New Zealand Government by means of the Direct Deduction Policy (Section 70).

Now NZ First has come up with a new bill that proposes to abolish Section 70 and in turn raise the residency requirement from 10 to 25 years. The bill doesn’t mention if people who have lived, worked, paid taxes and funded other people’s pensions in New Zealand for, say, 20 years would receive proportional NZ Super – or nothing. When I politely criticised NZ First MP Denis O’Rourke last November for the lack of a provision for proportional payments, all I got was an impertinent email. Sissi Stein-Abel, Lyttelton