Government says yes to Big Super Fund

Prime Minister Helen Clark says the proposal to prefund NZ Super will proceed even if there isn\'t cross-party support for the idea.

Tuesday, October 3rd 2000, 7:42AM

Like it or not the Big Cullen Fund is going ahead. That is the message the Government gave yesterday over its proposed scheme to partially prefund part of the future costs of the public pension.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said the cabinet has approved the fund and will kick it off even without a majority in Parliament.

She says there is "substantial community support" for the plan and said that the Government would introduce legislation "at such time as there is a parliamentary majority for it".

Currently the only party on board with the proposal is the Alliance. The Greens have been briefed on the proposal, but are, reportedly, some way off making a decision over support for the Big Cullen Fund.

National has not been briefed and New Zealand First has turned down a briefing.

The Government's decision to proceed with its super policy with neither broad cross-party support, nor wide discussion has attracted strong criticism.

National's Finance spokesman Bill English says such a scheme would mean that no Government in the next 30 years would be able to make major changes to its spending or tax. Deutsche Bank chief economist Ulf Schoefisch also criticised the proposal as anti-growth.

He argues the policy is more about income distribution, rather than economic growth, when the focus should be on the latter. Click here to see what else he has to say on the Big Cullen Fund.

Clark has indicated that Labour are committed to this policy and are prepared to make it a major issue at the next election.

"If we can't legislate then the money will be put aside. It will become a major election issue and we expect substantial community support around properly funding super for the future," she said.