PM warns elderly on NZ First promises

Helen Clark

Prime Minister Helen Clark is warning elderly voters NZ First's plan to boost superannuation payments to 72.5 per cent of the average wage throws NZ Super's stability into doubt.

Labour ministers go to electorates throughout the country from Friday at the start of a four-week parliamentary recess, eager to regain ground lost to National in recent polls.

Helen Clark will speak to Grey Power meetings in Nelson, Whakatane and Hamilton during the recess.

She told yesterday's post-Cabinet press conference her message would be to watch out for NZ First's super promises. Its leader, Winston Peters, announced in April the party wanted to gradually increase super from 65 per cent of the average wage to 72.5 per cent.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen ridiculed Mr Peters' costings at the time as completely unrealistic. Treasury estimated the cost at $630 million in the first year, rising to $1.68 billion a year after 10 years.

Helen Clark said yesterday she would tell the Grey Power meetings the promise would blow the NZ Super fund calculations and put the "certainty and stability" of arrangements around national superannuation in doubt.

She would also point to Labour's improvements to healthcare services, and the move in 2000 to lift super levels.

Mr Peters said last night Helen Clark was wrong that superannuation would be threatened, and Dr Cullen was wrong in his calculations about the cost.

Helen Clark said yesterday that stability would be high on voters' minds at the election, citing the first term of MMP when the National-NZ First coalition was a disaster and very unstable.

Mr Peters retorted: "I did not go back on my promises in 1996. I kept them, which was one of the reasons the coalition fell."

A rash of polls over the past few days have contained bad news for Labour.

But Helen Clark said despite being under attack from all directions the Government was still polling on average somewhere between the vote it got in the 1999 and 2002 elections.

"These are not disastrous results. They are a platform for getting on the front foot as we move closer into the campaign period."