Former Retirement Commissioner Diane Maxwell and Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff have gone head to head on TVNZ's Q+A programme tonight over whether New Zealand Superannuation is affordable and the eligibility age needs to be raised from 65.
Ms Maxwell said there are more of us at 95 who need government funding and government care, and that's really important.
"If we fund people at 95, 85, and 75, the question is do we fund them at 65, because then we're looking at 30 to 35 years on New Zealand Super," she said.
"When I go out and talk about this I usually go home and get some quite bizarre personal abuse that comes up afterwards about this terrible suggestion that we need to address super at 65. But we need to be thinking about the care of people at 95."
Ms Maxwell appeared on Q+A recently to say raising the age of eligibility to 67 is a no brainer, her comment prompting considerable feedback.
New Zealand Superannuation costs $30 million a day and unless there's a significant change in policy, that cost is set to balloon to $100 million a day in 20 years time because of the number of people living past 65, the programme reported tonight.
Mr Wagstaff said the CTU thinks super is affordable at the current age.
"There's a lot of people out there, particularly manual workers, particularly people who feel worn out. They're looking forward to getting to 65 and that's a bit of a reach. Moving the goalpost on them doesn't feel good," he said.
"And they've paid taxes all their life, they've worked hard, they don't have the nest egg to look after themselves and effectively privatise the care they want and the support.
"So we don't see this urgency. It feels like it's sort of been swept up into kind of a disaster scenario. We don't think it stacks up."
Super now costs $14 billion, or just under five per cent of GDP. In 40 years time it's predicted to cost $118.9 billion, around 7.8 per cent of GDP.
But Mr Wagstaff said, "Our figures are less than one per cent of GDP movement by 2060."
He said there's "not a cry for help for raising" the age, except from people who are saying we need to shrink the size of the state, a bit of austerity and that we need tax cuts at the same time. "It's not a package that's rational."
But Ms Maxwell responded, "I don't want us to be in crisis before we acknowledge this change, this is a structural change in the population. Does it really have to be right up in front of us before we address it?"
She said nobody is suggesting people who can't find work because of ageism, or are unable to work shouldn't be looked after.
On the question of whether New Zealand Super should be means tested, Mr Wagstaff said we need a decent tax system to support the pension system, while Ms Maxwell said we will get to means testing for NZ Super.
SHARE ME