Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 1938. SUPERANNUATION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 April 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 1938. SUPERANNUATION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

JJEFORE the Government’s national liealtli and superannuation proposals can in any real sense be placed before the Parliament and the country, many financial and other details of great importance must be cleared up. It may be hoped that the proceedings and report of the Parliamentary Committee which is now hearing evidence on the proposals will do a good deal to provide the information and elucidation that are needed. Already it is clear that if an accurate use is to be made of words, the term “national superannuation” must not be applied to the Government proposals. There has been talk of a contributory scheme of superannuation for all citizens attaining the age of sixty years, but that is not what is being put forward. Under the Government proposals all citizens m receipt of wages or othei* income will contribute to the superannuation fund, but only a proportion of the population will derive any benefit from the fund. The scheme is one of universal contribution, but it will provide pensions only for those who are able to qualify under a means test imposing severe restrictions. An essential point on which information rightly is demanded concerns the relative numbers of people in the Dominion who will and who will not. benefit under the scheme. This is an aspect of the position on which the Parliamentary Committee ought to be able to obtain and to present reasonably exact particulars. With all details and sources of information presumably open to the committee, it should be a comparatively simple matter for that body to arrive at close estimates of the numbers of people of superannuation age whom the scheme would admit to full benefits and the numbers it proposes to admit only to limited benefits or to exclude entirely from benefits. Apart from any question of fair play as between one section of the community and another —though that question has its own great importance —the proposed operation and scope of the superannuation scheme need to be considered from the standpoint of their vital bearing on the social and economic welfare of the whole community. That people should be protected from hardship and distress in old age.is eminently desirable and praiseworthy, but the prosperity and fortunes of the community in general may be undermined disastrously if the industry and thrift of those who are intent on making comparatively modest provision for their old age, and are capable of doing so, are directly penalised. The Government superannuation proposals,' as they have been outlined, plainly would penalise industry and thrift. For instance, an individual with an income of £2 10s a week, or a married couple with a joint income of £4 a week, would not receive a penny of superannuation on attaining the age of sixty, though they are to be compelled to contribute to the superannuation fund throughout their working lives. Apart from the serious question of justice to the individual citizen, a tremendous check certainly would be offered in these conditions to production anil saving. It would be too much to expect people to be industrious and self-denying to the end merely of making themselves ineligible for the State pensions they must help to provide for others. There are, of course, various other points on which information is required—notably the net coSt to the taxpayers of putting into effect the whole of the proposals relating to a national health, service, superannuation and new ami increased pensions. Some of the changes proposed are so sweeping, particularly in the category of liealtli service, that a complex task is involved in determining figures of total outlay and how far this outlay will replace or offset expenditure now made from taxation and from local rates. If it is free to draw any information it requires from official, sources, however, the committee should have no great difficulty in clearing up obscurities and difficulties of this kind. AVhat may be asked of the committee is that it should present the essential facts which will enable Parliament and the people of the Dominion to see just what they are being asked to vote upon.