‘Fair’ pension reform is inhumane, say migrants.
Migrants already in their 70s might have to wait 10 more years for a pension under a proposed law change. Rob Stock reports.
Migrants who have made New Zealand their home are protesting over ‘inhumane’ proposals that would make older arrivals wait 10 more years for NZ
Super.
African-born Hendrik Wentzel, an engineer with Ballance Agri-Nutrients, says his parents enable him and his healthcare worker wife Sunel to make their contribution to the economy of their adopted home.
Wentzel, born in Namibia, moved to New Zealand in 2007 from South Africa, and was joined in 2015 by his parents, Jannie and Nicolette Wentzel, who are now in their 70s.
But the family’s financial planning is under threat from a proposed law change that would see the residency period for his parents to qualify for NZ Super shift overnight from 10 to 20 years.
He says if the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Bill passes into law in its current form, some older migrants already in the country would die before they were paid a cent of NZ Super.
The Wentzels, and members of the Chinese migrant community, say the Fair Residency Bill is anything but fair, though they support lifting the qualifying period for future migrants to 20 years, as the current period is low compared to other countries’ requirements.
Both Labour and National support the shift from 10 to 20 years, but even they have voiced concerns about the harshness of the bill, which was introduced by NZ First’s Mark Patterson before he lost his seat in the last election.
Patterson said it would save around $80 million in the first year, and around $4.4 billion over 10 years, though those figures have been disputed.
And one Labour MP has told colleagues the bill would disproportionately affect Chinese and Indian families.
Jannie Wentzel called the proposed law ‘‘unfair and unreasonable’’, saying that when he and his wife emigrated, they did careful financial planning, factoring in the promise of NZ Super after 10 years of residency.
But their main aim in coming to New Zealand was not the NZ Super, but to support family.
‘‘Our main aim of emigration was to support our grandchildren and children who are both New Zealand citizens and professionals. They both work long hours in important jobs that contribute majorly to the welfare and wellbeing of New Zealanders in general,’’ he said.
As well as working fulltime, Hendrik Wentzel and his wife were raising children, and ran a watersports supplies company called Blue Mako. The childcare support from his parents had made that possible.
‘‘The whole reason they decided to join us in New Zealand was to support our aspirations and dreams in this wonderful place,’’ Hendrik Wentzel said.
There was a tendency to see older people as an economic drag on the state, but that was wrong, he said.
‘‘They enabled us to buy our first property and were able to invest time in us thereby enabling us to achieve what we have done thus far, and will continue to enable us to do more for New Zealand and its economy in the future,’’ he said.
His father volunteered as a tennis coach in schools, and his mother volunteers at a foodbank, he said.
Like many who sent submissions to Parliament on the Fair Residency Bill, Hendrik Wentzel said he understood changes needed to be made to NZ Super, but only for future immigrants.
When former prime minister Sir Bill English proposed lifting the age of NZ Super eligibility to 67 in 2017, his plan was to phase the rise in over time, so people had time to adjust their financial planning.
When the age of eligibility was raised from 60 to 65 in the 1990s, it was done gradually over a number of years.
After Patterson was voted out, National MP Andrew Bayley took charge of the bill, but his party has reservations about the social justice of an overnight change.
At the first reading of the bill in July, National’s Paul Goldsmith said: ‘‘It would be, I think, quite harsh for somebody who had been in the country for nine years and nine months, and had been in expectation of superannuation in their tenth year, to suddenly discover that they have to wait another 10 years.’’
National’s David Carter questioned the ‘‘social justice and fairness’’ of an overnight change for immigrants already in New Zealand.
Bayley said the details would have to be thrashed out at select committee later this year, but said public polling showed popular support for a longer qualifying period for NZ Super.
Labour’s Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic communities, said: ‘‘This bill will disproportionately affect some people, and that’s because immigrants from certain countries we have social security agreements with won’t actually be affected by this, but immigrants from countries like China and India will.’’
New Zealand has social security agreements with a handful of countries, including Australia and the United Kingdom.
Chinese associations from across Auckland sent pleas to MPs describing the proposal as ‘‘inhumane’’. They are seeking an exemption for migrants already in New Zealand, and have also asked that the rise from 10 to 20 years be phased in over a 10-year period for new migrants.
Aucklander Gloria Gao said her parents, who came to live in New Zealand in 2012, were very worried about the proposed law.
They were in their late 60s, and were within touching distance of qualifying for NZ Super. Both got small Chinese state pensions, but they were not enough to live on.
‘‘It’s not fair for them. When they achieve their 10 years they will already be quite aged,’’ Gao said.
‘‘If it goes ahead, they would feel quite hopeless. It’s lacking in social justice.’’
Both she and her husband Alan Yu worked fulltime, she as a social worker, and he in sales, and they were able to do their long hours thanks to her parents providing childcare for them.
Both had studied in New Zealand, and transitioned to become residents, supported by her parents, who had sold their house in China to come to New Zealand. Like the Wentzels, they had helped the couple scrape together the deposit for a house.
‘‘They contribute a lot. I want to acknowledge the contribution they have made. They treat New Zealand as a second homeland. We should be looking after them,’’ Gao said.
She said both were also only children as a result of China’s one-family, one-child policy, and in the Chinese community there was an obligation on children to look after their parents in old age.
Hendrik Wentzel said the African way was also for children to support parents, just as parents supported their children.
‘‘In Africa we have a tremendous sense of looking after our parents and factoring them and their wellbeing into our everyday lives,’’ he said.
‘‘I want to acknowledge the contribution they have made. They treat New Zealand as a second homeland.’’ Gloria Gao, whose parents are close to NZ Super but face a long wait if the law changes