A Possible Change to Superannuation in New Zealand

Vocabulary:

Superannuation, pension: money from the government for old people

Bill: a proposed (suggested) new law

Count toward: use some data to qualify for something. For example: The doctor says I have to drink five cups of water every day, and coffee doesn’t count.

Answers:

A new bill has been introduced to parliament proposing that people have to live in New Zealand for a longer time before they can get superannuation. Presently, you can get superannuation if you have lived in New Zealand for ten years. The bill proposes to increase the amount of time to twenty years.

In most developed countries, you have to live in a country for about twenty-five years before you can collect a pension, but New Zealand and Australia only require ten years residency. The new bill would not allow people who grew up in New Zealand to count those years towards their residency, as all twenty of the years would have to be after the age of twenty.

The bill was introduced by Mark Patterson, a member of the New Zealand First party. The bill has not yet been voted on by parliament, but it may get support from the National party because it has also talked about increasing the residency requirements for superannuation in the past. This step was also recommended by the Retirement Commissioner in 2016 so that New Zealand would not be too different from other countries.

If the law is introduced, it would only apply to new residents in New Zealand.