Age Benefit

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31006, 11 March 1966, Page 10

Age Benefit

Sir,—The press is as much to blame as the Tories or Labour. They never gave us a leader on this all-important part of social security. They should tell readers how New Zealand is slipping behind other countries such as Queensland. Pensioner’s flats are 5s a week.—Yours, etc., FAR BACK DAN. March 10, 1966. Sir, —I was interested to read the article by Miss Nell Robinson, one of a party of 140 men and women from Toowoomba, Queensland, who was touring New Zealand. She mentioned two subjects on which I feel very strongly: old-age pensions and death duties. Apparently the oldage pensions in Australia are on the same miserable scale as New Zealand’s. As for the means test, as Miss Robinson says, it should be “wiped." The pension should be paid to old people as of right, and what a person does should not enter into it at all. If they can earn £2O a week, good luck to them! Why should they not be given the chance to make the twilight of their lives as pleasurable as possible? As for death duties, as Miss Robinson says, they are indeed iniquitous, totally unwarranted. There is no semblance of justice or fair play in them. —Yours, etc., READER. March 7, 1966. [This correspondence is now closed. —Ed., “The Press.]

Mr J. H. Nash, the editor of the “Manawatu Evening Standard,” will become man-aging-editor. Mr D. Wederell will become editor, and Mr G. N. Nash associate editor (features).