Column: Cullen finds a different way to skin the Super cat

For all that Finance Minister Michael Cullen's new formula for creating a universal pension scheme will be reported as a change wrought in negotiations with the Alliance and the Greens, the new version is virtually identical in its effect to his original proposals.

By calculating contributions to the fund as a proportion of GDP rather than as a defined portion of the tax take, Dr Cullen is simply skinning the cat a different way.

Dr Cullen announced the most new detail on his dream of ensuring greater financial security for retiring baby boomers and their offspring today (Wednesday, July 19). But in doing so, he changed none of the the assumptions outlined in Annex 4 of this year's Budget Speech and Fiscal Strategy Report, issued on June 15.

That annex said that contributions to the new fund would initially build to $1.8 billion annually within three years, and that after that "the contribution rate is a percentage of GDP sufficient to finance NZS over a 40-year time frame".