OLD ARE PENSIONS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10451, 17 October 1911, Page 5

OLD ARE PENSIONS

THE AMENDMENT BILL.

BEFORE THE HOUSE OF KETRM« SENTATIVES.

(By Telegraph—Presß Association.)'

WELLINGTON, Last Night.

In the House of Representatives tc-nignc, the Minister moved the second reading of the Old Age Pensions Amendment Bilk The principal clause provides that where any person who, being a male, has reached the age of 60, or a female the age of 55, and has l depended on him or her two or more children, the pensioner shall be entitled to a peni sion, the amount of th& pension to |be as prescribed by the principal Act, with the addition of such sum, not exceeding £l3 per annum, aa the Magistrate in his discretion, having regard) to the circumstances of tli© case, determines l . Sir Joseph Ward stated that the scheme would cost some £jlO,ooo a year in extra: rates on the present. The pensions, where th«re were dependents, would be increased by 50 per cent., and the maximum pension would be £sl per: .yeairy.\ ','■.- .'■ : : • .-'.\. ;"'•" ..-. ) Mr Fisher askeicl/ that Imperial pensions' should be exempt under'the Act,. ■■ ■ ■ \,. . i ; 'Mr Wilford suggested that railway superannuations should apply in a similar manner. (Mr Hbgan thought „the scheme should be extended to indigent at 60 —the blind, maimed', crippled and deformed. Sir Joseph Ward> in reply, said-the question of applying the system •to rairwaynnen superannuated was all a matter of money. Last year the scheme had cost £380,000. This year the expenditure would be over £400,000, plus £55*000 for pensions to widows. The Bill was an enormous acvance in legislation dealing with pensions. (Left Sitting.)