Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Let's talk about superannuation

Let's talk about superannuation – which I’ve noticed we are doing more and more frequently and which I think will probably become even more frequent as our population gets older over the next few years.

It's come up again because the boss of Milford Investments has given a speech warning that this talk of taking the pension age from 65 to 67 is simply not enough.

And realistically, we have to lift it from 65 to 72 or maybe 73.

Apparently, we aren't taking the unaffordability of superannuation seriously enough, which actually I do agree with, the latter part, that we're not taking it seriously enough.

About 60 years ago, we used to have eight workers supporting one pensioner.

Today, we've got half of that, four workers supporting every one pensioner.

By the time I'm claiming my pension, it's going to be two workers supporting every pensioner.

That is completely unaffordable.

It will not work.

We will not be able to do it.

My prediction is that we are not going to take this seriously until we see the government starting to take this seriously because unfortunately, they are the ones who have to lead here.

They need to start leading by example.

If they want us to save money by giving up years of our pension, which is what the National Party will likely campaign on, then I'd like to start to see them starting to save money as well.

No more throwing money at the Sunny Kaushal’s of this world-or to, in my opinion, silence possible criticism.

No more giving billions to Shane Jones to blow on businesses that can't stand on their own two feet without government funding.

No more giving students a year of free tertiary education to buy votes.

When they start taking the so-called silver tsunami seriously, so will the rest of us, I suspect.

It's called compromise.

Until then, the pension remains the way that hardworking taxpayers who don't get all that other free government money, get back some free government money.

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