Questions you need to ask politicians

Research results recently released by the Superannuation 2000 Taskforce confirm what the public told us just after the Retirement Savings Scheme referendum. 89 per cent of the adult population want the political parties to get together and put in place agreed procedures which will provide much greater stability in retirement income policy.

It is clear that will not happen prior to the 1999 general election. The public can therefore expect each political party to put forward its own proposals in this area. That is a feature of our democratic process and it is not appropriate for me to get involved in the political debate that will arise. But a legitimate question is "how can voters assess the merits of the different proposals, each of which will be presented as the most desirable?"

The simple answer is that it is very difficult to make any such assessment in isolation. Retirement income policy needs to be considered as one part of a package of proposals. Given the current and potential level of expenditure on New Zealand Superannuation, it will be a very significant part of any policy package.

I believe however that there are some simple questions that every party should be prepared to answer when putting superannuation policy to the public. For example: