“Welcome to the Leighton Smith show on Newstalk ZB, the time is a quarter to nine and I’m joined by the fantastic /u/Fresh3001, leader of the ACT Party. Topic of the day is welfare, and what ACT plans to do with it in government. We’ll touch on some other topics also, if we’ve got time. Now, /u/Fresh3001, what exactly does ACT want to do with welfare, for all the listeners out there.”

“Thanks for having me Leighton, great to be on Newstalk ZB. So ACT believes in welfare as a useful safety net, to catch Kiwis when they fall down. But that’s all it should be, getting Kiwis back on their feet. It makes very little sense to take the money out of the pockets of all Kiwis to pay pensions to millionaires, nor should Kiwis pay for upper-middle class families to have their fourth child, sole parent support to someone making $80k a year, or the supported living payment to a family with two parents in well paid, full time jobs. So ACT would basically implement more stringent means-testing on all welfare, including superannuation and paid parental leave, to basically stop handing out money to people who don’t need it. Of course, we’ll exempt the veterans’ pension from this policy as we recognise the unique contribution they have made to our country.”

“Interesting. I can’t say I’d much look forward to not collecting a pension when I retire.”

“That’s understandable; Kiwis pay tax their whole lives and expect something back when they retire. ACT is basically making up for these cuts to welfare by cuts to taxation: 3% off the top bracket, 5% off income below $70,000, and so on. We also reckon that aside from being a terrible idea, fully subsidised tertiary education is effectively upper and middle class welfare too and we’ll be eliminating that program.”

“Ah, of course. Now you’ve got a more specific superannuation policy that’s been on the radar for a while now, don’t you?”

“Yeah, we’re advocating for an increase of the retirement age to 67 by the year 2020. The money the government spends on superannuation more than doubled from 2000 to 2016, to more than $11 billion. ACT thinks that it’s not fair to hold younger Kiwis responsible for paying the pensions of older generations as our population continues to age, and life expectancy increases. This is also upon the advice of the Retirement Commissioner, so it’s something that our public service supports.”

“Well, that sounds fair - I’m getting on a bit and I still feel fairly healthy so I can see why the age might not need to be 65. Thanks for joining us, /u/Fresh3001, was great to have you on.”