Dear current and future pensioners,

It has been a while since my last newsletter. I had too much on my plate and there were no developments that would have required instant action.

I have not given up, have updated the www.nzpensionprotest.com website (direct link: https://sites.google.com/nzpensionprotest.com/nzpensionprotest/home) after the change of government, and have added an incredible story about a scandalous SSAA hearing in Hamilton where evidence was destroyed due to “a very unexpected technical fault”. Not only the audio recording had disappeared. The authority delivered the decision which had been promised for the end of the day, after seven months!

The topics in this newsletter:

1. The new Government has no intention of making changes to the Direct Deduction Policy

2. New absurd justification of the pension rip-off by the new Minister Louise Upston

3. The latest numbers of “savings” on the cost of NZ Super

4. Affected pensioners and their health issues

5. Leaving New Zealand permanently for a happier life

6. Disappearing evidence at an SSAA hearing in Hamilton

7. New Zealand’s media ignore scandalous story

Unfortunately, there are no exciting news that could change our lives regarding the Direct Deduction Policy. In the meantime, I have been made aware of a letter from the new Government’s Minister for Social Development, Louise Upston, in which she writes that the coalition government has no intention of making any changes to the policy.

I am not surprised by this as all incoming ministers and governments receive advice from the same civil servants who try to hang on to old policies. And just looking at the current numbers, at how much this legalised theft of overseas pensions saves the New Zealand government, you understand all too well why no-one is interested in justice for retired migrants and returning Kiwis.

Official NZ Super savings of NZ$ 566,722,177 – and much more

The latest available numbers from December 2023 on the Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD’s) website list annual savings of NZ$ 566,722,177 after deducting 99,192 overseas pensions.

The real number is much, much higher, even more than double the amount, as the statistics count only pensions that were taken off a pensioner’s NZ Super when this pensioner received some dollars of NZ Super. All those who do not receive any NZ Super because their overseas pensions are higher than NZ Super are not counted. Their number can only be estimated. My rough estimate is between 40,000 and 60,000. It can only be estimated because not every person over 65 living in New Zealand is eligible for NZ Super, for various reasons.

The new Minister’s absurd claims on the funding of overseas pensions

What has amazed me most in Louise Upston’s letter is to which lengths the new minister and MSD are going to justify the rip-off. The Minister seriously wrote that employer/employee-funded overseas pensions, which are only paid to people who have been in paid work and made contributions to a compulsory insurance scheme, were almost identical to NZ Super, although the latter, but only in theory, is paid to almost everyone over 65 who is not in prison and whose dog hasn't bitten a neighbour. 

According to Upston and/or her advisors, the contributions made overseas are about the same as paying tax in New Zealand because part of this tax funds the pension and benefit system. The fact that only social welfare benefits are funded completely differently overseas remains unmentioned. They are funded by the taxpayer but not from the retirement insurance scheme. On top of it, a worker overseas also makes contributions to a dedicated unemployment fund AND has to pay for compulsory health insurance in most countries.

Upston continues by saying that overseas individuals pay lower general taxes as they need to pay a dedicated social security tax. The conclusion: "This places the contributor to an overseas pension scheme in a similar position overall to the New Zealand taxpayer." One can only wonder why migrants who do not receive full or any NZ Super still have to pay the same amount of tax tagged for social security purposes as New Zealanders who receive full NZ Super. Some politicians seem to forget that migrants and returning Kiwis are also taxpayers - and have to pay for their pension twice!

Winter is coming – again…

What aggrieves me even more is that pensioners who do not receive any NZ Super, zero dollars even after two decades in this country, do not receive any Winter Energy Payment (WEP). I have talked about this issue on previous occasions, and still think the wording and justification of this policy is legally highly questionable, if it ever had a real legal base. It is heinous to say that someone can’t receive the WEP because they do not receive NZ Super after the deduction of their overseas pensions, while being entitled to NZ Super. This is bending the rules of justice to an unacceptable and unbearable extent.

It has not been an oversight or unfortunate wording. The previous Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, wrote to me at the time that it had been the intention to add insult to injury (of course, she used different wording LOL) and make people who have nothing but their overseas pension miss out completely on any kind of benefit even Kiwi millionaires and every politician over 65 are entitled to.

This leads to the anti-social outcome that someone who receives NZ$ 1 of NZ Super will get the WEP but someone whose overseas pension is NZ$ 1 higher than NZ Super does not get it. And still Sepuloni, now in opposition, presents herself as a voice for social justice and thinks she needs to add mustard to every single sausage in sight.

Pensioners write to me regularly about unfairly missing out on the WEP, and they are right. If you are on the amount of NZ Super alone, it is extremely hard to make ends meet. And it happens because it saves the Government any amount between NZ$ 21 and 27 million, based on 60,000 pensioners who do not receive a cent of NZ Super due to the Direct Deduction Policy (different rates for singles/couples).

Winter is coming – again… Make your voice heard, contact the new government and the new Minister. And don’t forget to ask our old friend Winston Peters what his ideas on the issue are.  You might remember that he missed the opportunity to promote the pension issue as a member of the Ardern government because it “died” during the coalition negotiations…

I have written to Casey Costello, the new Minister for Seniors, and thanked her for letting me know what I do NOT get, as in the Seniors newsletter she informed about the increase of NZ Super on 1 April and the start of the Winter Energy Payment (WEP) in May. However high the increase and however close the start date, I receive nothing, as multiplying zero dollars with any number is still zero, and you do not get the WEP if you do not receive any NZ Super. I miss out on $24,934 a year in NZ Super alone, people living alone even on $27,012.

It reads even more farcical when you compare our losses to MPs’ pay increases announced yesterday. Even backbenchers will receive an extra $17,239 – plus all kinds of tax-free allowances, and even backdated to last October.

Affected pensioners struggling with health issues

Other pensioners write about their health issues caused by the stress about the Direct Deduction Policy so many only hear about when they apply for NZ Super and it is too late. It is also the feeling of being powerless and subjugated to the mercy of the authorities and their absurd arguments to legitimise the matter. The duty of disclosing very personal information to faceless bureaucrats who threaten to stop the meagre NZ Super payments if you don’t fulfil their requests.

In this context it makes me laugh when they say that you receive full NZ Super if you choose the Special Banking Option and have your overseas pension directly transferred into MSD’s Westpac account! LOL LOL

Others write how bitter it is to be ostracised as an immigrant even after 30 or 40 years in New Zealand. At this point let’s acknowledge that more and more born-and-bred Kiwis are affected by the policy. It is even more perverse that Kiwis who have left the country at, let’s say, age 49 and return at age 65, can only receive NZ Super when they are 70 because they have not spent five years between age 50 and 65 in New Zealand. At the same time, some immigrants who have arrived here at age 55 and have never worked, receive full NZ Super after ten years. But this is a different policy.

It just shows that New Zealand’s pension system is a shambles. Due to this fact now even Kiwis without overseas pension problems write to me to find out to which country they can move in retirement without the risk of losing part of or their entire NZ Super!

A happier life and better sleep overseas

Sometimes I also receive positive messages. They usually are from migrants who leave New Zealand permanently because they can’t deal with the unfairness of the pension rip-off. Some move back to their home countries, some go to totally new and sometimes even exotic environments. But wherever they go, the message is the same: their health improves, they can sleep at night, they are happy again.

If it is your intention to do the same, don’t tell WINZ/MSD when applying for NZ Super, or they tell you that this plan amounts to breaching the requirement of being “ordinarily resident”, and you will be denied NZ Super. But without receiving NZ Super, you can’t apply for proportional NZ Super under the Portability rules. (You find more information on this on the www.nzpensionprotest.com website under “Portability: NZ Super overseas” and “The pitfalls of Portability”.)

Disappearing evidence at a SSAA hearing

In the past year I have closely followed a case which highlights how close to impossible it is to get justice in New Zealand. The story is about a pensioner couple and their supporting witness who presented new evidence about the deductibility and non-deductibility of some UK pensions at a hearing at the Social Security Appeal Authority (SSAA).

This couple who have been living in New Zealand for 50 years and who receive contributory UK pensions requested the appeal hearing because they believed MSD was not entitled to deduct their UK pensions from NZ Super. They are convinced that MSD applies the Direct Deduction Policy (DDP) – Sections 187 to 191 of the Social Security Act 2018 (formerly: Section 70) – instead of the regulations of the Social Security Agreement between New Zealand and the UK.

The SSAA hearing took place at the High Court in Hamilton on 4 October 2022. The couple and their support witness were told that they were not allowed to make their own audio recording of the hearing but that they would be provided with the audio recording, and that a decision would be made by the end of the day.

Seven months later, on 15 May 2023, the SSAA dismissed the appeal. The Appellants were given 10 days to appeal at the High Court or the appeal would be dismissed. This was impossible, not just due to the massive cost of such an appeal (a lawyer they consulted would charge $800 per hour!), but because the SSAA and MSD had supposedly lost the audio recording of the entire court hearing bar the first 5 minutes due to “a very unexpected technical fault” (and this was not the first time such an “accident” has happened at such a hearing), and they wouldn’t provide a transcript “due to cost”.

Whatever the couple tried after that, they didn’t get anywhere because every authority, court or law society responded so close to deadlines that no time was left for a reply.

Read the full story of this scandalous case on the Pension Protest website:

https://sites.google.com/nzpensionprotest.com/nzpensionprotest/the-fight/disappearing-evidence

… and the media don’t even reply

And it does not stop there. Mid last year I tried to interest a few well-known members of the New Zealand media in this issue. But they did not even reply to my emails. The same when I asked one journalist I thought I had had a good connection with over the years, if he had been muzzled. No reaction. Being a journalist with decades of experience myself, I am more than astounded, to say the least.

These journalists would have had better resources and connections to dig deeper. But there was and is absolutely no will to do any research. Make your own conclusions why journalists who blow up minor political issues into scandals, stay mum and ignore the information I have passed on to them.

It was irrelevant if they found the Direct Deduction Policy fair or unfair and if they understood the different kinds of pension systems. This story was not about the policy but about the impossibility of getting fair hearings with government departments, authorities, agencies, and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in particular.

With this I wish you a warm winter and all the best. If you have any interesting news, please let me know.

Sissi