Launch to take aim at super policy

WELLINGTON: Labour will launch its election year congress this weekend by taking aim at National’s policy to raise the super age to 67, saying people will miss out on more than $50,000 — and that figure will be much higher if Act New Zealand’s policy to cap KiwiSaver subsidies is added.

The calculations will be used by social development spokeswoman Carmel Sepuloni in her speech today, in which she will also announce the first of Labour’s new election policies.

The congress in Wellington will be Chris Hipkins’ first as the party’s leader and will give an idea of what Labour’s campaign will look like as he tries to win it a third term.

There will be two small policy announcements, but targeting National and Act is expected to be a big feature as the two big parties slog it out to get ahead in the polls.

The figures it will use today are intended to highlight Labour’s claim a NationalAct government would be a ‘‘coalition of cuts’’ — Labour’s counter to National’s description of a LabourGreenTe Pa¯ti Ma¯ori grouping as a ‘‘coalition of chaos’’.

Labour is releasing figures which calculate the amounts people will miss out under National’s policy to increase the superannuation age to 67 and Act’s to cap KiwiSaver subsidies.

The figures do not take into account the benefit from National’s tax cuts. However, Labour says the figures are conservative, because they are based on the current rates of super rather than future increases.

Labour’s figures show a 30yearold average wage earner would miss out on about $52,000 in super and $46,500 in government contributions to KiwiSaver under Act’s policy — adding up to nearly $100,000.

An 18year would miss out on two years of super and $85,000 in KiwiSaver contributions — a total of $137,000.

National leader Christopher Luxon said last year he was committed to sticking with National’s 2017 policy to lift super to 67 in stages, starting from July 1, 2037, because it was ‘‘the right thing to do’’.

Act supports lifting it to 67 much sooner — and indexing the age to life expectancy.

While Labour has previously had a policy to increase the super age, it scrapped that before 2017 and has not looked at it again.

Mr Hipkins will speak tomorrow, his first address to the Labour faithful since becoming prime minister in January.

That will be aimed at setting out what his leadership means, rallying the volunteers for the campaign — and hosing down expectations of bigticket policies.

He said it was too soon after the Budget for big policies, but his speech would include a smaller announcement — ‘‘something that is important to me’’.

That is expected to be on education.

The bigger policies — including tax — would come later.

However, he also sounded a caution there.

‘‘Personally, I don’t think this is going to be a bigspending election campaign.

‘‘I don’t think that’s where the heads of the voters are at.’’

His speech was an opportunity to set out to the Labour members why he got into politics, what drove him and what he hoped to achieve, ‘‘so what I hope will be the defining features of my leadership of the party’’. —