OPINION: I'm feeling in a placatory mood this week which is just as well given some of the feedback to my last sermon.

Last week's column questioned the wisdom of spending $26-28 million of taxpayers' money on the Super Gold Card scheme.

My main objection is the money spent on the card could be better and more fairly spent elsewhere. I'm sure some seniors rely heavily on the gold card but I suggest nine out of 10 seniors could pay without discomfort.

Judging by the feedback, many seniors feel they deserve the card, even earned it. They worked hard all their lives, paid tax and were bloody well entitled to it.

READ MORE: Oldie Super Gold Card greed needs to be curbed

I don't argue that oldies don't deserve the Super Gold Card. Everyone does but the point is more that the money would be more useful elsewhere.

Neither do I blame seniors for signing up for the card as soon as possible after 65. Offer something for free and they will come. The Super Gold Card was, after all, a modest little bribe put out by NZ First which any political party would now be loathe to dump for purely electoral reasons.

People do not always vote in their own interests, especially on ambitious programmes that scare them with their cost and radicalism. But tangible, tidy carrots like the Super Gold Card have a voting potential far outweighing their worth or importance.

In economic terms the Super Gold Card is a minor issue. We live in times when $28m is a drop in the bucket. For instance in the 2016/17 year, the Government will spend $16.2 billion on health, $12.3b on welfare and social security and $12.9b on superannuation.

The significance of the card is it illustrates the danger of pandering to one group in society because of their electoral weight. Seniors represent a sizeable block of the population and due to longevity and birth rates, the block is only getting bigger.

Most seniors are not selfish and will vote in the wider interests of the country. After all they have children and grandchildren and are not stupid. (I suspect a lot of seniors who don't really need their superannuation end up giving it their kids in various forms.) But oldies are a specific group who respond to the pushing of specific buttons.

The Super Gold Card is just a tiny perk compared to the universal benefit for the over-65s provided by National Superannuation. One of the really interesting challenges facing the scheme is what the Government will do about people still working and also getting their super.

After my Super Gold Card column I had a call from Ross in Hamilton who had just retired from fulltime work aged 74. He worked in the Railway's Addington workshops for half his life and then worked for an aluminium joinery company.

Obviously a terrific, hardworking bloke but why should he get what is essentially a guaranteed income on top of his wages each week when others probably have a much better case? For instance imagine a single, mortgage-paying, 45-year-old woman with two high school kids, working full time in a supermarket on the minimum wage.

Although statistics always need to be treated carefully, New Zealand has a high proportion of citizens over 65 still working. About 40 per cent of people in the 65-69-year-old age group still clock in and even in the 70-74 group, 19.5 per cent are still in the workforce.

Some will be working because they need to. Perhaps they are supporting a grandchild or still renting. About 25 per cent of over 65s do not own or partly own their own home.

Some will do it because the higher income is too good an opportunity to pass up and the motivation for some will be mainly wanting to keep busy.

This brings us inevitably to the subject of raising the age of superannuation entitlement.

By international standards New Zealand has a fairly modest and affordable superannuation scheme but it is not sustainable and younger tax payers cannot be blamed for worrying whether the universal benefit will be around for them.

The latest census shows about 607,000 people in New Zealand are over 65, representing about 14 per cent of the population. By 2043, over 65s will form about 24 per cent of the population and those 85-plus will quadruple to about 360,000 by 2061.

(I expect to continue working into my 70s and die around 2046 so count me in).

Essentially the trouble for countries like New Zealand is a perfect storm of a large and fairly sudden increase in life expectancy, a low birth rate and a strong expectation the state will provide a good pension.

Superannuation is one of the two main pressures on the Government coffers coming from the seniors. The other is health. Treasury reports that at current revenue settings, especially in regard to tax, it might just be able to afford projected growth in either one of these two areas, but not both.

Many of the OECD countries, like Iceland and Norway, have already raised the pension age to 67 and New Zealand will at some stage inevitably follow.

Those seniors – like Ross – who have double dipped for years are the lucky ones. Those who miss out will have good cause to feel aggrieved.

This a vexed issue. You want people to keep working and paying tax. Experience and wise heads are still needed in most workforces. If people save their universal benefit while still working that also has national benefits.

But hard, unpopular calls will need to be made. The worry is that if seniors get worked up about the Super Gold Card, what happens when necessary cuts go deeper?

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