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The last thing you'd want to be

One night when you haven't got much to do, wander around the Wellington streets. If you wait long enough, chances are that you'll see an old lady wrapped in a long coat rummaging through the rubbish bins. Or go and talk to the friends of a man who developed gangrene in his foot at a Wellington "charitable institution" and died for lack of prompt medical care. Go to a greengrocers in Newtown and watch them come in and ask for "two small potatoes please". Watch the bus stops for them just before four as they queue for 5c bus fares or see them sitting dejectedly in Pigeon Park waiting to die.

These people are the old-age pensioners, the intouchables of the New Zealand class system. Somehow, we have convinced ourselves that this sort of destitution is the "natural state" of old people, that after half a century of labour they deserve no more than a room in Newtown with a one-bar heater and the knowledge that they will never be able to buy another suit or a new coat.

There are over 100,000 old age pensioners in New Zealand and they are expected to live on $24 a week if single and $20.35 a week if a married couple. Their savings would average around $1200—$1500 which over 10 years (their approximate average life expectancy) amounts to under $3 per week. This moans that tens of thousands of pensioners are "surviving" on an income of under $24 a week.

A student, living in a shared flat can live reasonably well on this amount. This is not true of pensioners. They often need constant and expensive medical care, frequent readjustment of glasses, a warm (read 'expensive) flat, and so on. Often they are still paying off a mortgage on a house they have lived in for 25 years. They have to pay someone to mow the lawns (sometimes a student working for $5 per hour). All these additional expenses mean that the pension is not enough for a reasonable sort of existence—it is enough to stay alive and no more.

But wait a moment—haven't we got a Labour Government? Isn't Norman Kirk, "the pensioners friend" the Prime Minister? What happened to to the new age of social welfare? The answer is that Labour has done little more than National for New Zealand's old people. What it has done is: a) Given two Christmas bonuses; b) Offered a rates rebate; c) Offered a telephone rebate of 50%; d) Given pensioners a a 3% increase when everyone else got 2.7% i.e., 60c a week.

Even these few concessions are not what they appear. The rates rebate benefits only those pensioners who can afford their own home and some 55,000 people have applied for this where are the others? Simple—they're still paying rates through their rent. The telephone rebate has been used as an excuse by the Social Welfare Department to severely reduce or cut out altogether any supplementary assistance being given.

The 3% increase is ridiculous; "cost of living" adjustments to an inadequate pension merely mean that the oensioners remain at the same level of poverty.

Finally, the Christmas Bonuses are an affront to the dignity of pensioners and an admission that the pension is inadequate. Kirk described as "one of his most wonderful moments" the time he got a letter from an old age pensioner thanking him for the Christmas Bonus because it let her buy her first pair of shoes in seven years. Santa Kirk strikes again.

The situation of pensioners in New Zealand is a result of their position in our economic system—they exist as an appendage to the system. The Government theory seems to be that because of this they are valueless, and that the best reaction is to encourage them to die soon by forcing them to live in sub-standard conditions.

Pensioners are no longer willing to meekly accept this situation. They have organised themselves into the Pensioners and Beneficiaries Association, which promises to become a powerful pressure group. They are demanding an initial and immediate raise in pensions to the minimum adult wage rate of $47, rising in the long term to $75 per week, the average weekly wage.

Pensioners are tired of being nothing more than targets for the charitable missiles of Rotary and the Churches. They do not want discounts, bonuses, telephone rebates or any other form of dehumanising handout. Rather, they want the sort of income that will enable them to live out their lives as human beings and not as scavengers dependent on others charity.

With almost a quarter of a million people receiving pensions and benefits in New Zealand, they have the power, as one pensioner said "to put any political party in, or out of office". They are just beginning to use this power, but use it they will and so force Kirk's government to stop playing Santa and start fulfilling the spirit of their election promises.