Commentaries
Thought-leadership articles from key members of the Pensions and Intergenerational Equity research hub.
2025
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Document Description: Three critical policy changes would improve rental affordability for older people. The 2025 Review of Retirement Income Policies provides an ideal opportunity to make those necessary changes.
2024
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Document Description: In October, Treasury pointed to a higher than budget night deficit for 2023/24, and ACC was blamed for a good part of the deterioration. ACC is social insurance, but the current private insurance approach requires actuarial full-funding. A shortfall in funding of future costs contributes to ACC's large operating deficit. Are higher levies as proposed by ACC over the next three years to close the deficit necessary, even if they are inevitable under current accounting rules?
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Document Description: One of the intractable issues regarding intergenerational equity is the taxation of income from capital. In collaboration with tax and accounting expert Terry Baucher PIE has been involved in producing an approach to the untaxed accumulation of capital gains in housing that would yield immediate and significant revenue to address the many pressing problems New Zealand faces.
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Document Description: New Zealand is in the enviable position of already having abundant hydro power capacity. But with increasingly uncertain rainfall due to changing climate patterns, adding widely distributed rooftop solar would mean the country was less vulnerable to lower lake levels.
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PIE Commentary 2024-7: Aged Care. Size: 123.2 kB.
Document Description: Recent submissions to parliament’s Health Select Committee make it clear that a crisis looms for the aged care sector in New Zealand, centred on the funding and staffing of residential aged care and in-home care and support services.
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PIE Commentary 2024-6: Should ACC levies be raised in 2024? . Size: 322.3 kB.
Document Description: ACC is suggesting levy increases for three years to 2027/2028. This commentary examines the case in the context of ACC as social insurance and the context of the timing in the economic cycle.
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PIE Commentary 2024-5: PIE 2024 Budget Analysis. Size: 276.5 kB.
Document Description: The 2024 NZ budget was preceded by a raft of cost cutting changes. This commentary offers some preliminary distributional analysis of the tax package and is based on media contributions in the week following the budget.
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PIE Commentary 2024-4: Addressing financial hardship. Size: 229.1 kB.
Document Description: On a panel with Brian Easton and Len Cook at the Brightstar conference 'Delivering equity for Older New Zealanders', Susan St John addresses some of the immediate policy issues around the financial hardship experienced by an increasing number.
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PIE Commentary 2024-3: Self-fulfilling expectations?. Size: 159.6 kB.
Document Description: Emeritus Professor Tim Hazledine invites a discussion of the role of self-fulfilling expectations as New Zealand feels the chill winds of recession in mid-2024.
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PIE Commentary 2024-2: Superannuation - a fiscal challenge or opportunity?. Size: 560.3 kB.
Document Description: The Retirement Commissioner invited a range of participants to discuss the future of NZ Superannuation. The Super Summit event comprised a set of four panels informed by a background document, Te Ara Ahunga Ora, New Zealand Super Issues and Options. This commentary relates primarily to the first panel on the fiscal sustainability of NZ Super.
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PIE Commentary 2024-1: The Great Welfare Reset. Size: 410.7 kB.
Document Description: Susan St John was invited by 1News to contribute an opinion piece on the direction of welfare reform in 2024. She describes the return of a dated philosophy that makes paid work the only work that matters.
2023
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PIE Commentary 2023-17: Age Friendly Auckland Symposium. Size: 345.8 kB.
Document Description: Age Friendly Cities and Communities have evolved over time to recognise that the ‘age friendly’ approach benefits everyone in the community. This Commentary provides a short background and record of Auckland’s 2023 Age Friendly Symposium.
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Document Description: The incoming Coalition government has compromised on National’s election manifesto for Working for Families in order to secure promised tax cuts. But a few tweaks of what is left of their Working for Families policy could still set it on a better path to help reduce child poverty and better reward the paid work by the squeezed middle.
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Document Description: More than three decades on from the transformational economic changes under Rogernomics, the results of governance of the universities under a corporate structure have been unimpressive. For improved intergenerational equity and a better functioning economy, a world class tertiary sector that has students and academics at its centre is required.
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Document Description: The incoming National government has promised to halve child poverty and wants to grow the economy. A few tweaks of its Working for Families policy would help it achieve these objectives or at very least set it on a better path to do so. With thanks to The Conversation, we republish this commentary by Susan St John as a beginning to the needed political debate around how we take care of our children.
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PIE Commentary 2023-13: Who is asked to bear the costs of old age?. Size: 190.9 kB.
Document Description: It is time to examine whether our system is suitably designed for the realities of the 21st century ageing population including their projected high costs of care and health services.
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Document Description: One of the clear drivers of wealth and income inequality is the structure of taxation. This commentary provides a pre-election analysis of the failures of tax reform in New Zealand and what needs to be done to restore credibility so that the New Zealand tax system better meets equity, efficiency and administrative simplicity criteria.
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Document Description: In contrast to the universal, poverty preventative and unconditional basic income (NZ super) everyone gets at age 65, children’s income through Working for Families is highly conditional, tightly targeted and does not prevent the worst child poverty. In large part this is because the weekly child-related payment to prevent or reduce child poverty is not paid in full to all low-income families. The worst-off families (about 200,000 children) do not receive the part called the In Work Tax Credit, yet it is this discriminatory aspect both main political parties promise to enhance in 2024. Their policies will have no impact on the worst child poverty but, ironically, they will perpetuate severe work disincentives.
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Document Description: One of the clear drivers of wealth and income inequality is housing. But the issues are not just monetary. Too many scarce materials and human resources are diverted into top end housing away from their use for the provision of affordable housing. The real estate housing boom in New Zealand of recent times has been the strongest in the developed world. Well beyond the provision of a basic family home, housing has become a tradeable investment for many, a store of value and a source of large untaxed capital gains. Is there a practical way forward?
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PIE Commentary 2023-9: Buy now, pay more for it later.. Size: 130.9 kB.
Document Description: The fairly recent introduction of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) into New Zealand has been a convenient and low-cost form of credit for many people but has inadequate protections for consumers who may struggle to make repayments.
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PIE Commentary 2023-8: When do we ever learn?. Size: 250.9 kB.
Document Description: We are very aware of outright frauds and con artists who can cause much pain to those with money to invest, but there are many pitfalls for the unwary in our shadow banking sector as history teaches us.
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PIE Commentary 2023-7: All for an extra $20 a week? . Size: 607.2 kB.
Document Description: Susan St John questions the work done by Treasury to provide a tax-free threshold paid for by a wealth tax and asks “How would giving an extra $20 a week to nearly everyone, paid for introducing a hugely complex wealth tax of $4 billion ever going to be any kind of answer to the grave challenges NZ faces? Once the $4 billion was frittered away in a tiny tax break for everyone what about the tax revenue needed for everything else?”
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PIE Commentary 2023-6: How do we talk about tax fairness?. Size: 773.7 kB.
Document Description: PIE research highlights intergenerational equity issues and welcomes the increased attention to the growing wealth divide in New Zealand. However, three recent 2023 reports obscure the issue by dubious calculations of the effective tax rate and an unfocussed debate about fairness: the Sapere report, the IRD report and Treasury report on the holdings of wealth.
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Document Description: Tim Hazledine questions the wisdom of the decision for a partial divestment of the city’s shares in Auckland’s airport to help close the claimed $325 million deficit in the city’s 2024 budget.
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Document Description: The state age pension, New Zealand Superannuation (NZSuper), is individual, inclusive, non-contributory, and gender-blind. But a comfortable and secure retirement in New Zealand depends largely on owning a mortgage-free home. Income impacts a person’s ability to save for a deposit on a home, and income impacts longevity. Lower income is a major driver of shorter life expectancy and poorer health.
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Document Description: PIE highlights intergenerational equity issues around funding models for state and local government. Mayor Wayne Brown has claimed that the Council’s investment in Auckland International Airport Limited (AIAL) is a “lousy investment for debt-burdened ratepayers.” But does the current ‘fiscal crisis’ require the sale of council’s 18% share in AIAL or is would that be, as Terry Baucher argues, “a very short-sighted response to what is a temporary shortfall.”
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PIE Commentary 2023-2: What is the purpose of the Ports of Auckland?. Size: 134.5 kB.
Document Description: PIE highlights intergenerational equity issues around state ownership of New Zealand’s key strategic assets. As the carrot of quick budgetary salves from selling shares in Auckland Ports dangles in front of the Auckland City Council it is important to remember the value of public ownership. With parallels to other key privatisation disasters taxpayers and businesses will inevitably face high costs when the goal of the Ports of Auckland becomes profits for private shareholders.
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PIE Commentary 2023-1: Who is asked to bear the cost of fighting inflation today?. Size: 387.3 kB.
Document Description: PIE highlights intergenerational equity issues and shares the concern that the worst-off, including many retired people with few assets and families struggling with low wages and high housing costs are being asked to pay the price of fighting inflation. Has the high current rate of inflation been mis-diagnosed as demand driven?
2022
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PIE Commentary 2022-4: Poor progress on equal pay legislation. Size: 143.5 kB.
Document Description: The Equal Pay Act 1972 was meant to prohibit discrimination in pay on the basis of sex, ethnicity and/or disability. Half a century on and it is depressing to find little progress has been made and large numbers of people are still paid inequitably.
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PIE Commentary 2022-3: Issues of ageing and retiring in Aotearoa. Size: 407.4 kB.
Document Description: In 2021, 194,700 older people were in the workforce, and this number is expected to double by 2071. This PIE Commentary briefly surveys issues around ageing and retiring in Aotearoa, including ageism, gender differences and risks. Options for reducing the financial risks are explored.
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PIE Commentary 2022-2: Can Auckland become an age-friendly city?. Size: 167.7 kB.
Document Description: The Tāmaki Makaurau Tauawhi Kaumātua Age-friendly Auckland Action Plan provides much to celebrate. It includes the World Health Organisation’s eight core characteristics of an age-friendly city, and adds two areas: Kaumātua and culture and diversity. It also expands the outdoor spaces and buildings domain to become Te Taiao - the natural and built environment. But a key area that Auckland Council has not given enough attention to is employment of older workers.
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PIE Commentary 2022-1: Looming Crisis for Retirees. Size: 144.1 kB.
Document Description: This Pension Commentary outlines some causes and consequences of a looming crisis. Many New Zealanders now aged between 50 and 65 – a cohort of almost half a million people – will go into retirement as renters after skyrocketing house prices over the last three decades put home ownership out of reach. With minimal savings and no home ownership they are facing a future of poverty.