Four key election issues - animated video

UnitedFuture is campaigning on four key election issues. View the Podcast video to the right, to find out what they are......

Flexible Superannuation

New Zealanders should be able to take superannuation at reduced rates down to 60 or increasingly enhanced rates if they hold off until between 66 and 70, alongside making KiwiSaver compulsory.

 Kiwis would then be able to manage their retirement age and lifestyle – choices they currently do not have – and it would be cost neutral with the current scheme.

 Each year below 65 that superannuation would be claimed down to 60, would see a small reduction, and each year over 65 up to 70, it would be enhanced.

The final figures used would make it cost-neutral with the superannuation scheme as it stands, with the long term sustainability issue addressed by having compulsory KiwiSaver.

 The sustainability arguments around superannuation, and whether it should be 65 or 67, then become redundant.

 People can then do their own maths and work out what works best for them based on their lifestyle and aspirations.

 It is very simple. Our policy recognises that today people work and stay active for longer – and it is sustainable for New Zealand in the long term when connected to compulsory KiwiSaver, which frankly we need to do as a nation at some point.

Kiwis will have a working, sustainable and secured retirement future and that is what we need to be working towards.

 In the meantime, what we propose gives them choice about how they want to shape their lives in retirement and when they want to begin.

 

UnitedFuture will also:

• Amend the superannuation formula so it is calculated on forecast changes to the CPI and average wage increase for the following 12 months. (Currently adjustments are made after the event, creating a time lag that cheats superannuitants of their full entitlement. Any unforeseen changes to inflation or wages would be adjusted each April, in favour of superannuitants.)
• Exempt those who have themselves contributed to overseas pension schemes from the provisions of Section 70 of the Social Security Act, which currently deducts the amount of their overseas pension from their NZ Superannuation entitlement, thereby penalising them for having provided for their own retirement. Section 70 should only apply where an overseas pension has been fully funded from general tax revenues.

Income Sharing

UnitedFuture believes the tax system should work in the interests of those raising families and it should empower family and community self-sufficiency rather than creating dependency. Income sharing recognises that the spouse or partner who has chosen to work part-time or has opted out of the paid work force in order to raise their children is making a vital contribution to our society.

Income Sharing means that each partner in a relationship caring for children would be taxed on a 50% share of their combined income, resulting in a significant reduction in total income tax paid by the family.

Income sharing recognises the costs of raising a family, and in particular, those situations where one parent is either a full-time carer for their children or works part-time. For tax purposes, the income of both parents is combined and then divided equally, which can mean that they pay less tax since it is levied at a lower rate under our progressive taxation system.

Since the government subsidises childcare for those returning to paid work, it should also acknowledge the contribution of those who have decided to forego their income, in whole or in part, to stay at home with their children.

UnitedFuture has introduced legislation for an income sharing scheme for parents with dependent children up to the age of 18, in addition to Working for Families and other entitlements.

 Key Facts:

• The present tax system means that people who have no dependents pay exactly the same amount of tax as people with dependents.
• Couples who are self-employed in farming or business and retired couples are already able to split their income for tax purposes but this is not available for those on PAYE incomes.
• According to the 2006 census, there were 310,000 two-parent families with dependent children (children under the age of 18 years, living at home) and most of these would benefit from income sharing.

Income Sharing

• Income Sharing (PDF, 151.7 KB)

Note: PDF downloads require the free Adobe Reader application to view.

Caring for Elderly

UnitedFuture has two key policies to keep older New Zealanders warmer and healthier. Both are about making New Zealand the kind of country it should be and make economic sense.

• Subsidise the power bills of over-65s by $50 per month for the three coldest months of the year – June, July and August – so our seniors can afford to keep warm

• A free ‘Warrant of Fitness’ annual health check for those over-65 to identify health problems and illness early
  

It is the decent thing to do in terms of how we treat the elderly in our country.

Times are tough, but if you cut too many corners you end up with a false economy – and a very harsh country.

 Each winter, on average an extra 3000 people a month are hospitalised at a cost to taxpayers of about $880 a day, and a great many of those people are elderly – that adds up to about $243 million in extra hospital costs each winter.

 We have got to stop just looking at the initial cost of schemes, and measure them against what they save in the longer term through people being healthier and not being in our hospitals, and frankly, not dying because they get cold and sick.

 We save cents and lose dollars. It is a false economy and we see it too often.

 Put that $243 million for increased winter hospitalisation up against our Winter Warmer policy cost of about $57 million to help keep a lot of elderly well, warm and out of hospital.

 Death rates also jump 18 percent over winter – many of them elderly.

The subsidy could be implemented by a rebate on the power bill to be claimed back by the power company.

The $25 cost of the annual Warrant of Fitness health check for each senior citizen would be tiny when balanced against the $880 a day hospital tab picked up by the taxpayer when conditions not got on to early are far more serious and far more expensive to treat.

The combined cost of the two policies if fully taken up by all senior citizens would be about $71.5 million – $57 million for the power bill subsidy and $14.5 million for the WOF annual health check.

 Given the benefits that would come from these policies, they would be extraordinarily economical.

Asset Sales

The National has a manifesto that includes asset sales. New Zealanders need to start a proper debate on the future limits of those sales.

To this point there has not been a proper national debate beyond National saying yes and Labour saying no.

We need a conversation that is more detailed and drills down into what New Zealanders really think are acceptable bottom lines.

New Zealanders are not definitively pro-asset sales, but under certain conditions, it is no longer the bogeyman issue that Labour would have you believe.

UnitedFuture’s role as a support partner is not just to contribute its own policies, but to help keep a government to a reasonable, centrist path.

UnitedFuture says let’s start with three no-go areas where there would be no asset sales, not now, not ever

Kiwibank, Radio New Zealand and the water supply should be ruled out of any future asset sales programmes

Kiwibank is in every sense now a national institution, whether you bank with it or not. And in a market full of Australian-owned banks, and an increasingly fraught and troubled globe, it is both a symbolic and practical statement of our economic sovereignty. Collectively, it is ours pure and simple. It must stay that way.

Radio New Zealand exists in an increasingly commercial media marketplace, and it is more important than ever to have a voice that does not bend to the dollar, to ratings, to external forces. Every nation needs its own voice and we need to afford that voice our collective protection.

Water. UnitedFuture does not intend to wait until it is on the asset sales agenda. New Zealanders would never – or should never – accept a sell-off of the supply of the water, or any of the aspects around it.

In addition, with regard to Asset Sales, UnitedFurure will insist that:

- The New Zealand Government retains majority control (51%)

- Shareholding by private investors be capped at 15%

- New Zealand household investors are given preferential purchase right at time of issue.