New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark says the Government will push on with plans to establish a dedicated superannuation fund despite no guarantee of majority support in Parliament.
The announcement follows Cabinet approval of the super fund plan. The creation of a government super scheme to pre-fund New Zealand’s future pension liability was one of the Labour Party’s election pledges but ran into political trouble following the lack of minority party support.
Labour does not have an absolute majority and is normally reliant on both the Alliance Party and the Greens to pass legislation.
The Alliance has now indicated it will back the Government plan but Labour needs the support of at least one other party to legislate. The Green Party has previously indicated it will support the super fund only if all other parties do while the other obvious supporter of a compulsory superannuation scheme, New Zealand First, has been sceptical of the Labour plan.
However, Clark says that while legislation is preferable “if we can’t legislate then money will be put aside”.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen originally championed the idea of putting aside eight per cent of income tax to create the fund but later said it could be created out of budget surpluses.
Clark says the super fund will continue to be an issue at the next election and is likely to gather considerable community support.
