My Grandfather's Ghost
Will He Finally Be At Rest?
According to my late grandmother, Robert Muldoon killed my grandfather.
According to the doctors it was a heart attack that happened while he was in hospital waiting for heart surgery. And according to my father it’s the reason he fears visiting hospitals to this day.
Ok, let’s set the scene a little.
Three years ago, I met the mother of my father’s best friend from high school while he was in town visiting them from Perth. She was a staunch National supporter. I, as a total stranger she hadn’t seen since I was in kindergarten, was someone she assumed was a National supporter and freely volunteered her opinions that included Jacinda was vapid, covid wasn’t really a threat and Christopher Luxon was good at business so would be good at Prime Ministering and his christian beliefs meant he wouldn’t allow policy that would hurt people.
You may have noticed, but I’m a little clued up on politics and I gently pushed back with frustrating things like data, evidence and anecdotal information that she refused to look at, consider or believe. Although we did agree that Luxon saying he would work with Winston would lead to a huge can of worms and you know what, we were both right on that one.
But during this conversation, she told me my grandfather would have hated what I represented. He passed away before I was born, so I wasn’t sure. But I do remember hearing my grandmother claim it was Muldoon that had killed him.
After the election as the coalition negotiations went on and on and on, I found myself on the Gold Coast visiting my uncle and aunt on Dads side and I mentioned this to them. Now they’re also National supporters, but for the reasons National traditionally stood for - and they were surprised by this claim about my grandfather. It turns out he was a Union member in the Paerata Dairy Factory in the 70s, a staunch labour supporter at the time and he really loved the universal super scheme Labour had put in place. According to these relatives, he felt that super scheme was the key to helping stem inequities by building a better future for the country. And economists these days claim it would have created a massive wealth fund worth billions now if it had continued.
But in 1975, Robert Muldoon ran the most infamous political ad in our history - the Cossacks under the bed animation. Now calling people socialists and communist is a long held tradition on the right to delegitimise the idea of looking after people at a state level. It’s still used today on twitter by supporters of the current government quite a bit. And the 1975 campaign was all about how this scheme was actually secretly leading to communism - because everyone putting in a dollar a week would make the government rich enough to by every business and farm in the country.
So once elected in 1975, Rob Muldoon cancelled the scheme almost immediately (he actually bypassed Parliament to do this which was deemed illegal by the courts). It had been running less than a year at that time. Contributions workers made were returned (but no interest was added) and employer contributions went into Muldoon’s replacement, the National Super Scheme we essentially have today - but at the time it was unfunded so took a massive chunk of government operational budget to set up and deliver. The average amount returned was $37 or a dollar a week the scheme ran, and in 1975, the average weekly income was about $100. So that employer contribution that wasn’t returned equated to close to 40% of their weekly salary being taken by the government or two weeks of rent for the average suburban flat.
It is the closest thing we have to a UBI now. And the aging population, inflationary and wage adjustments and longer life spans means the amount it costs us increases every year.
This new system started in February 1977. It meant suddenly massive amounts of funding was not there for other public sector elements - like education, health and road infrastructure, in the midst of the 70s oil crisis it fuelled government debt and killed the incentive to save for retirement because the government had your back. It lead to the increase in retirement age to 65 and would take 25 years for another scheme to even come close to replacing it - Kiwisaver.
My grandfather passed away in May of 1977 - two and half months after the launch of the scheme he felt was going to screw over the country, and the future for his 18 year old son - my father. Although I couldn’t say for sure Muldoon directly caused that - it seems more likely the timing was just a bad coincidence.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the legislation that replaced the universal super scheme. And the first time ever a National Party leader has said a compulsory super scheme is a good idea and something they would take to the electorate. And my head just went right to the dancing Cossacks ad. I mean they don’t have to wait years for all the money, they have rich people giving tem heaps of money right now to keep things the same. But this feels like a weirdly socialist policy for a political party that has a very long history of fucking over Kiwisaver and workers who most benefit from it.
But it does feel like a way to deal with a problem that Nicola Willis (and to be fair a lot of other Finance Ministers) have had concerns about - the ongoing cost of universal Super.
In a story in the Post after the announcement, it was admitted that that this was a step towards being able to wind back superannuation in the future, creating less reliance on the universal scheme National set up because they told people doing this was communism. It’s a way of cutting back without means testing - but those who have had higher incomes over the years will see higher returns so won’t have to see a drop in living conditions, and of course, there is a bit of an age demographic that tends to vote right and this could be an appeal to them because it locks out means testing or removing super anytime soon.
This policy though isn’t one in isolation - National’s other campaign policy was an increase to contributions heading up to 6% over the next few years, claiming that this puts us on par with our Aussie neighbours - but over there your employer pays for it all on top of your salary with no obligation to be met by workers. And overall, no one is arguing being better prepared for retirement or setting yourself up to help you into assets like a home is a bad thing. But for National, this is a very socialist policy and for this National Party in particular it feels like about the right level of lack of vision with hidden pitfalls - it’s a safe policy, but not really an exciting one.
But I suspect if the original 1970s mess hadn’t caused my grandfathers heart attack, the idea of a Muldoon lookalike National Party PM suggesting a Labour policy might have done it instead.