<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>0:33 what about the concern of the backbenchers the steep clawback for superannuitants earning more than eighty dollars a week from other investments <,> is that an area that you're going to be looking at particularly in today's caucus oh no the ink is scarcely dry on the budget <.>th there is no turning back <,> the changes were made because they had to be made <,> the budget sends a very substantial set of <&>1:00 signals we will look after those who most need our protection that's the sixty five percent <,> and we will ask those who are better off to make a contribution now er there is er signalled in the budget an intention to look at how we treat the private provision of retirement income that that is an issue that we signalled for further scrutiny and debate <.>a and er my suggestion is that we all spend our energy on that cause i mean we have spent six days in budget debate and one night subsequent to the budget it's now the seventh day it's not time to rest but we do have an agenda of reform in the way in which we look at the private provision of retirement income and that's where i think you will find the caucus will be spending its energies what about on treasury er michael laws has been saying that treasury is the most useless advisory group in the western world and er he's never known treasury to get a prediction right <&>2:00 oh well that personal abuse deserves the contempt of my silence nonetheless it raises some questions that which perhaps are certainly echoed in some of the letters i've got here people wonder if treasury is to be trusted minister the government <,> brought down the budget the government <,> is acting <,> in the country's interests it is the government that is accountable i think it's contemptible when people reduce the argument to personal abuse i don't know is it so much personal abuse i mean there's no personalities as such involved though people are questioning whether the advisory groups are giving good advice and is treasury a group that is giving good advice minister governments for years for all my adult life <,> have been given advice to spend more to tax more to borrow more to inflate more <,,> is going to lead to an economy losing ground but it's up to a government as to whether or not <,> it acts on the advice advice can be tendered <,> <&>3:00 that's not the issue the issue is whether or not a government chooses to act <,> on either advice or on its own instinct i can tell you the instinct of this government is that we are going to call a halt to those policies that have bankrupt this country and our instinct is to govern for growth but how many members of the government are with you on this one minister there seems to be a great deal of dissent <{1><[1>four of them have crossed the <{2><[2>floor <[1>there there <[2><.>th there there there seems to be <,> a good deal of media hype i mean i just look at the hype before the budget huge amount of fear mongering <,> it was such that when i walked into the media lockup that occurred for five and a half hours before the budget was presented there was sort of this this overwhelming er reaction from the media saying hey this looks fair it sounds fair it is fair and it was the media that wanted to concentrate on the niggling negatives and <&>4:00 whipping up the hype <{><[>you don't get good government out of hype <[>now voc are four backbenchers crossing the floor mere niggling negatives but what why is there so much dissent within your own government <{><[>on this issue missus richardson <[><.>th <.>th <,> well there is not so much dissent the government has secured support for its measures that's what you would expect we don't have a mindless two four two rule where everybody has to march into the same lobby but you look where the centre of gravity if you like of the government lies there is huge backbench commitment <,> to the <,> budget there is huge cabinet commitment to the budget in fact it was the most democratically written budget in the country's history and is the sounder for it does it concern you at all though that backbenchers people like michael laws are speaking out publicly they're obviously unhappy with various measures in the budget oh it's entirely predictable <,> er that as the prime minister puts it the familiar few <&>5:00 will want to have their say it's a democracy but they haven't prevailed let's have a look at some of the letters before we go to the talkback calls hazel anderson of ashburton er along with er roberta macdermott of waimate and others <,> are putting the question for the thousands of married women she wants to ask you ruth richardson why it is that married women superannuitants who have worked unpaid all their lives in the house bringing up families and doing all the unpaid charitable and community work which married women in paid work are unable to do things like creches kindergartens raising funds for plunket meals on wheels <,> er hospital visiting that kind of thing why it is that when these people who can never retire from household chores reach the age of g r i entitlement national superannuation they receive some money they can call their own for the first time in their lives money they don't have to account for and they well deserved in in her view now under this new joint income testing if their husbands have a modest income from savings prudently invested for retirement these women are <&>6:00 deprived of their g r i payments hazel anderson and others ask do you think this is fair yes i do think it's fair because we have decided that the family is to be the basis for all of our welfare decisions and i think that's what new zealand would want i mean if you take hazel <.>an and her friends they have lived and operated as a family because he has been working she has been able to make a huge and significant contribution that so many women up and down this country make in the cause of voluntary services but they have acted and operated as a family and therefore when it comes to looking at the means of the family it is artificial in the extreme suddenly to divorce them <,> for the purposes of income assessment er we look at the reality the reality is that most of us have the happiness of a family base most of us pool our income <,> as a family and therefore that is the proper basis upon which we could should make an <&>7:00 assessment in respect of income available to a family but a lot of people retain their separate incomes as well er ruth allen of ponsonby says that she's a recipient of g r i and she has a small parttime job she's recently remarried and her husband has considerably more money and assets than herself she points out we have separate estates separate bank accounts but pay all expenses from a joint account fed with equal amounts of money by each of us she asks how do i stand as the poorer income spouse compared with the high income spouse in the matter of means testing does she have the option to be means tested independently no that family will be assessed as a family unit because that's how they operate how they choose internally within that family unit to divvy up their income and and who controls what i mean that's for them that that that's not for the for the state to trespass into that matter we stand outside the family unit and a family can be you know many different compositions and we we just look at how that <&>8:00 unit has operated and it operates as a unit that has income available to it and so for the purposes of looking at a family that has substantial means compared to say with the low income working family that we wanted to to benefit in terms of lower costs of going to the doctor when we had to make those choices we chose <,> to advantage the lower income family and to say to the higher income family however they shared their wealth you can indeed make a contribution to the recovery of this country oh <.>th that kind of logic suggests to some people that they would be better off to divorce and er blow all their savings a a letter from er mister hughes of whangarei says why have married people been discriminated against he gives an example of two single people living together and receiving national superannuation they're allowed eighty dollars a week extra income whereas a married couple are allowed only eighty dollars between them to me and to many others writes mister hughes this seems most unfair single people or those living in a de facto relationship <&>9:00 receive a benefit slightly more than either the married couple well <.>y <.>y your correspondent er raises an issue that perhaps has been the most frequently asked question and that is why are couples <,> given only the same amount of allowable earnings before their benefit starts to reduce as single people but just clear up one misconception before i answer that <,> people who live in the nature of a marriage are treated as if they were married so it's it's not a case of de factos getting away with it er and those of us who remain in a marriage <{><[>being penalised <[>how are you going to establish that though oh the department of social welfare makes those judgements all the time i mean you you you cannot have people artificially sort of organising their affairs and and er abusing the system accordingly but but take the the the substantive question which is why do you treat a single person on the same basis as a couple <,> <&>10:00 say you take two two brothers or um two sisters living together er in a household they will generally because they don't have that that close family relationship they will generally have their own cars they will generally have er their own responsibilities and the way in which er the welfare system has administered income tests er and indeed all around the world i think except for australia er the single person is regarded as having er you know a a more substantial set of of er costs and and responsibilities than a couple living together <.>a and in our welfare system we have never made a distinction between the allowable earnings for a couple and the allowable earnings for an individual but i mean brothers and sisters for example if they're living under the same house are are benefiting aren't they from that kind of family unit because they're sharing expenses so shouldn't they therefore be treated er at least <&>11:00 for accountancy purposes if you like by social welfare as a family well families are are complex things and and i guess there are some brothers living together that that can have more harmonious um living arrangements than others but but very often the the studies that have been done by the department of social welfare show that single people tend to lead single existences sure i mean they might share the breakfast and and the tea but often they have their own expenditure running their own cars running their own televisions you know running their own lives and that to a substantial extent er and the fair thing is to regard them as independent units er frank bailey of hamilton raises <.>a another question about superannuation he says er that his firm's super scheme allowed him the option of taking out a generous slice as a lump sum and and to take a reduced pension do you confirm missus richardson that the sensible thing for him to do is to er take a world trip to squander his money basically in order that with a reduced pension he shall <&>12:00 receive a larger fraction of the state pension no i i don't regard that as wise advice because frank or or anybody else like him in that position will still always be better off if they have extra income available to them income that comes out of their private savings anybody <,> whose superannuation is reduced because it's abated is still always better off than if they relied wholly on guaranteed retirement income we'll take a break er at at the moment from the whole question of er superannuation we'll come back to it because we have many other letters that deal with that question but let's turn our attention now to education <&>12:45