New Zealand Conservative

Election year - phtttt . All the major opposition party can do is let off damp squibs in National's camp. Things that blow back in their face. All the National folks are doing is crowing about how incompetent Labour is. Meanwhile our children are leaving for greener pastures. We are going nowhere fast.

The Retirement Commissioner, Diana Crossan, has thrown the Government a curveball with her suggestion that the retirement age be raised to reduce the expenditure on pensions as the population ages. John Key, like every other politician in living memory as reacted by kicking the issue into touch. Which displeases Diana Crossan . The real problem is of course the declining fertility of the New Zealand female. Whereas the women of New Zealand raised large families in the years immediately following World War 2, their offspring and their offspring's offspring have not. And the generation born in the aftermath of World War two are now retiring creating a large liability upon those still in their productive years. A situation predicted many years ago now and kicked into touch then as now. Of course while in a theoretical sense Diana Crossan is 100% correct that raising the retirement age will address this, in the real world it will just shift the problem. You see in the ivory...

Hey ho - it is another Awareness week. Is there any week that isn't a something Awareness week? Anyway this one is called Scam Awareness Week and it is a Government initiative . People are being urged to be on the lookout for consumer ruses during Scam Awareness Week, which began today. "According to research commissioned by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, New Zealanders greatly underestimate the cost of scams," Consumer Affairs Minister John Boscawen said. "Of 1000 people surveyed, 90 percent believed New Zealanders lose under $300 million a year -- but the cost is closer to $450 million per year." But there is one scam virtually all of us have been subject to and probably isn't included in the list of scams the Government is keen to see shut down. Click here to see what it is Click anywhere on the image to close it