No problem with no booze, drugs, tobacco or gambling. It is because I have never bothered with these things that I have my sports cars, & had my yachting & motor racing, but stick your cards. That is a typical communist scheme to keep tabs on everyone.

As I said previously my parents generation paid to educate us, & the pension of the old then. We educated your kids, & for pension when we earned. Now it is time for your kids, & mine to pay their dues.

If I were a bit more doubtful I would be quite worried about this app they want everyone to down load. It doesn't effect me either, my phone is too old to handle the thing, but it is a lot of big brother for not much.

Hi Hassy, the booze, gambling etc is just a moral issue, and why should the government care what welfare recipients spend the dosh on. I think the real beef with conservative voters, like my youngest son, is the underlying resentment at "cash for the undeserving" which they see welfare as generally being.

The real financial problem presented to the government by the elderly, is their growing dependence on the annual federal budget to provide for them, not just pensions, but other aged services as well. With an ever increasing aged population the demand on the budget is growing exponentially, and simply is not sustainable in the long term. Old folks are accepted far more benignly by the general tax payer than others within the welfare section. Yet its the elderly that are the biggest problem going forward.

Young taxpayers don't see a future welfare system working for them, they see themselves paying for largesse for those now, like the $1500 handout, but when it comes their turn in 30 or 40 years time, the benefits just wont be there.

in 30 or 40 years time, the benefits just wont be there.
Paul1405,
That'll depend entirely on them if they vote in a Labor Govt again & if they don't start seriously thinking about changing their ways of living beyond their means !

Paul,

I think it is pretty certain that further changes will come to pension arrangements given the expected debt levels and the cost of that sector.

There will obviously be some dissent with this one.

personally, i like the kiwi system where all get pension, but pensions are also subject to taxation.

So wealthier people end up reimbursing govt through higher taxation levels as they will have much more saved and owned

Dear Chris,

«personally, i like the kiwi system where all get pension, but pensions are also subject to taxation.»

Do you mean that older New-Zealanders are forced to receive tax-payer money? Even those who conscientiously object? Is it physically shoved under their mattresses?

Then also, for a frail elderly person whose hands are trembling, sight limited and legs not so happy to make the trip to the other room where their tax-receipts and bank records are kept, presenting a tax-return can be a grueling task and this extra sum can quite spell the difference between having and not having to lodge it. Would this be how you like to spend your last years on earth?

Has Paul ever talked about his contribution to society? Has he made one? What is his work? Does he actually work? Like all members of the extreme Left, he has a lot to say about other people and what they deserve - or what they do not deserve more often- but what about him? His continual sniping at 'old farts' indicates they he is not old himself. So how is he being productive and contributing to the pensioners he hates so much? He has fathered a bus driver and a crane operator. The offspring of most parents usually do better than their parents. We know nothing about this bloke who presumes to know everything about other people and how they should behave.