United Future’s flexible government-superannuation proposal is typical of Dunne’s on-going lack of respect for New Zealand men. National has been in no hurry to confront what others are calling an essential issue with John Key telling us that the retirement age won’t be raised from 65 while he is prime minister.

That may suggest that he (and government) are avoiding the issue or it may suggest that the issue is simply not as big a threat as some people make of it. Populist politicians like Dunne exist for any limelight that can be acquired by addressing a perceived lack of leadership or an invented crisis.

Over the last three decades politicians like the poodle (as Dunne has become known to National) have contributed significantly to the reduction in the financial and social viability of men. What is at risk now, is breading a generation that lacks the education, skills and determination to contribute to society which in turn is the biggest threat to those of us facing retirement.

Affording superannuation is a matter of how the economy performs not a matter of there being an age-bubble confronting us. Don’t be fooled by Dunne’s poodle-pandering to the feminist brigade. He has found another place to piss on men.
There is a big red flag here for New Zealand men and our future impoverishment in Dunne’s proposed early retirement at 60 years of age on 70% of the usual entitlement – I’ll come back to this.

Superannuation, like any issue, has its element of fear-mongering and misinformation:

“If we don’t address the issue now, the only way we will afford superannuation is to print money’.
It is entirely possible that these circumstances may arise but only as a failure to address real issues rather than the “current problem’.

“If we lift the age of eligibility that will steel jobs from our youth’.
This is a fallacy invented by people who rightfully object to being made to work in their twilight years. As long as the older generation have income they can spend they are injecting money back into the economy. That creates economic activity and produces jobs.

For those people who would rather work for their own pleasure or because they can comfortably earn more money than they would on superannuation that is also is a benefit to the economy. However, retirement while it is not mandatory is essential for the wellbeing of many other people who have lost their capacity to work, particularly men.

Sixty-five years of age should not be seen as a target of entitlement but as an option. Continued work could easily be incentivised by adjustments in taxation. Working and collecting a pension is not acceptable; the system was and still should be intended to provide a standard of living. Dunne’s proposal would rip that away from men who have laboured hard throughout their lives.

Dunne’s proposal of higher superannuation for a longer working life is simply pandering to feminist determination to increase women’s income and in this case at the direct expense of men.

“We need to save for our retirement’.
This is another fallacy that benefits a few individuals and the insurance industry but is self-destructive to our countries economy. It is not an option that an increasing number of New Zealanders can afford, men in particular – in the pursuit of child tax the IRD makes this unaffordable, and even for those that do make the effort it is sizeable to pay your mythical debt.

Whether the money is being ripped away from men through child support or pumped into non-productive savings, it matters not because either way that money is not entering and growing the productive sector of the economy. It is dead money.

The affordability of government superannuation depends entirely on economic activity. What is happening here is that the demands of feminist governance are restricting economic activity. While this is happening the economic equation becomes one of balancing the books rather than one of meeting our economic requirements and targets – that is what government should be contending with but they will continue to reduce the wellbeing of men rather than face that responsibility.

Returning to the 70% proposal. Superannuation is based on 70% of the average wage. Those, mostly men engaging in the 70% of superannuation figure are effectively reduced to 50% of average wage. Many men will have some form of government induced child-support debt and others will have a student loan from late in life re-training, which will also be deducted from the benefit. (That is already happening.)

There is a real risk here that the unemployment benefit will be a higher cost to government than male superannuation and men “deemed’ not fit for work will be forced into economic deprivation, existing in poverty on reduced superannuation – that is not retirement it is exploitation.

While there will be some women who fall into this situation, the real winners in Dunne’s proposal are women in light-labour occupations that can physically maintain working to obtain a government-sponsored gender-specific adjusted-superannuation which will be paid for by the deprivation of men.

Men who are not fit for work should be able to retire at 60 and not 65 but in peace not poverty.

(Note also the tendency of some writers to refer to superannuation as a benefit rather than an entitlement!)