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Speaker 1: As we enter yet another round seemingly of the superannuation debate.

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Speaker 1: I note it was led off last week by a

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Speaker 1: group that wanted what they termed a top up i e.

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Speaker 1: A pay rise for those who couldn't save. So you

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Speaker 1: can see how fraught that concept is from the get go.

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Speaker 1: Why couldn't they save? There's surely your first question, why

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Speaker 1: couldn't they save? You've got forty years, and I suppose

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Speaker 1: that's another aspect of this whole mess. Actually has changed.

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Speaker 1: Do you have forty years or do you have fifty years?

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Speaker 1: I mean people will longer. Surely a chance to save

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Speaker 1: more money. Superfits and almost unique category of topics in

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Speaker 1: this country so entrenched it won't change. It's a futile

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Speaker 1: exercise if you keep bringing it up, only to be

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Speaker 1: beaten down by the time honored belief that, for whatever reason,

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Speaker 1: if you get to sixty five, you are owed something

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Speaker 1: by the state. You paid your taxes. Of course, your

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Speaker 1: taxes have been well and truly spent. For most people,

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Speaker 1: whatever you handed over is long gone, and in that

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Speaker 1: is one of the great sadnesses of the New Zealand

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Speaker 1: economic story. We have very few net creditors, but a

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Speaker 1: lot of net debtors. People who actually pay more to

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Speaker 1: the system than take from it are very rare. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: when I started working, excuse me, in nineteen eighty two,

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Speaker 1: I took out a scheme whereby if you put a

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Speaker 1: few dollars a week aside, you would become a millionaire

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Speaker 1: by the time you got to sixty. And I'd completely

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Speaker 1: forgotten about it, mainly because I stopped paying because I

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Speaker 1: worked out it was bollocks. Anyway, I was reminded of

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Speaker 1: this the other night. I got a text text came

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Speaker 1: through from an old girlfriend who, when we were together,

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Speaker 1: taken out a similar policy, but she'd stuck with it.

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Speaker 1: Forty years later she is about to collect one hundred

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Speaker 1: and six thousand dollars, so not quite a millionaire and

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Speaker 1: not really a stunning return on investment. But what I'd

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Speaker 1: worked out all those years ago was the government were

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Speaker 1: not to be part of my retirement. Why would they be.

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Speaker 1: Governments let you down, Governments change rules, Governments had their

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Speaker 1: own interests at heart, not yours. So I saw to myself,

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Speaker 1: Am I lucky? No? Not really? Did I work hard? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Do I care what the retirement age is? No? Do

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Speaker 1: I care what the rules are no. That's the value

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Speaker 1: of charting your own course and not being behold into overload.

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