August 28, 2016 4:00pm by David Farrar

NZ Seniors Party

The New Zealand Government is being accused of taking money from superannuitants with an overseas pension.

Waikato man and expat-Brit Paul Norfolk is one of the estimated 170,000 Kiwis affected by an act of Parliament that sees their overseas pension entitlement being used to subsidise their New Zealand Superannuation.

“Its unfair, I have lived in this country for 34 years and have made a contribution to the New Zealand economy,” said Norfolk.

But where Norfolk has run foul is while living and working in Cambridge, he has also paid into the British National Insurance Scheme.

“I paid into the scheme, The British Government never contributed but because Section 70 of the NZ Social Security Act 1964 says people cannot be paid two pensions, I miss out.”

Norfolk said for every dollar a pensioner receives from an overseas pension, the New Zealand payment is reduced by a dollar.

The idea is to stop double dipping – so that people don’t get two state subsidisied pensions.

But another way you could do this is simply pro-rata the NZ pension based on how many years someone lived in NZ. If 40 years, you get the full pension, if 30 years 75% etc.

“There needs to be some consistency, for example why is it politicians after three terms can collect a Parliamentary pension as well as New Zealand Super, and we can’t collect what we are entitled to,” he said.

They can’t. That scheme closed decades ago. Now MPs simply have a superannuation fund that reflects what is paid into it.