Latest / Best of Business / Cameron Bagrie: independent economist on whether New Zealand's Superannuation needs to be reformed

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Cameron Bagrie: independent economist on whether New Zealand's Superannuation needs to be reformed · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
• 0:12
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: So the Finance Minister Nicola Willis was on this program
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  Speaker 2: last night and she says she would like to have
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: a discussion about how we're going to pay for our
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: superannuation in the future, but she quick to point out
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  Speaker 2: National hasn't got a position on this at the moment.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Treasury has raised concerns about the increasingly large bill for
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: New Zealand souper and the independent economist Cameron Baggery is
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  Speaker 2: with me to discuss Cameron, good afternoon.
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  Speaker 3: Good afternoon, right, good to see you, Good to.
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  Speaker 2: Talk to you. It's been a while. How urgent is
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  Speaker 2: this discussion around the future of MS super Well, I.
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  Speaker 3: Guess the longer we keep kicking the ken down the road,
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  Speaker 3: the bigger the economic adjustment or the shock we're going
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  Speaker 3: to face down the track in regard to the tough
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  Speaker 3: choices we're going to make. You know, we should have
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: been biting into this in the nineteen nineties, but what
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  Speaker 3: we keep on doing, Ryan is that no one's got
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  Speaker 3: I guess what you call the guts to make a
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  Speaker 3: bit of a stand. But if you look at all
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  Speaker 3: the numbers you see on superannuation in combination with the
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  Speaker 3: fiscal cost of an aging population, which healthcare costs, is
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  Speaker 3: clearly not sustainable for the next sort of forty years.
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  Speaker 3: Treasury data statement on the long term fiscal position, they'll
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  Speaker 3: be saying for a long time, government debt on a
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  Speaker 3: status quo is going to end up towards two hundred
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  Speaker 3: percent of GDP. Despite those warnings, we're still not prepared
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: to buy the bullet and put some alternative options on
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  Speaker 3: the table because the status quote the numbers don't stack up.
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  Speaker 2: It's allectually obviously very unpopular thing to do. But as
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  Speaker 2: a as a relatively younger person, I don't expect that
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  Speaker 2: by the time I get there that I'm going to
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  Speaker 2: be getting the super that my parents are going to
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  Speaker 2: be getting or that my grandma is getting. Right now,
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  Speaker 2: what is better? I mean, you've argued for means testing,
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  Speaker 2: Is that better than increasing the age?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think we're going to need a combination of policies.
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  Speaker 3: Increase in the age makes an awful lot of sense
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  Speaker 3: because we're living longer. When you see on separation first
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  Speaker 3: come in the nineteen fifty here the average age life
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  Speaker 3: expectancy for a male was sixty seven and for female
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  Speaker 3: was seventy one, and now it's an excess of eighty
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  Speaker 3: for both. So you're spending a bigger chunk of your
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  Speaker 3: life over the age of sixty five, which just puts
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  Speaker 3: more pressure on the public person. I think New zeal
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  Speaker 3: superannuation should be leaked to life expectancy, and life expectancy
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  Speaker 3: to be fair, is different across different ickness groups, so
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  Speaker 3: you're not just going to have a female and a
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  Speaker 3: male band. But I don't think that that itself is
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  Speaker 3: going to be sufficient. I view the wealthy state is
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  Speaker 3: there for the needy. That's where it needs to get prioritized.
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  Speaker 3: We've got now more than fifty percent of le wealthy
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  Speaker 3: is spending is going towards New Zealand superannuation, and some
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  Speaker 3: people need that money. But there's a chunk of society
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  Speaker 3: that I don't think need that money, and they're double dipping.
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  Speaker 3: And I know that they used the argument that I've
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  Speaker 3: paid my taxes all my life. Well sorry, We're going
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  Speaker 3: to face some tough choices going forward, because if we
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  Speaker 3: expect the state is Quay to work, then someone's going
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  Speaker 3: to have to pay on the other and the issue
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  Speaker 3: is who's going to pay on the other.
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  Speaker 2: Side, Cameron, Thank you, Cameron Beger, independent economists from Bagary Economics.
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