Marie Hazledine-Barber

A customer enters a car sales yard with a basic knowledge of a car, knows how to drive it , has a degree of trust and faith in the sales person and the reputation of the company. There is no expectation for a customer to have a degree in mechanics, studied the industry for years and be qualified to follow through with the purchase.

In the financial market with the angst of KIWI SAVER the constant catch words are “customer responsibility” customers should understand the products which are presented: many are in a complex dossier of words that would take either a lawyer or preferably a qualified person with a commerce degree to even understand the basics.

The question is: The New Zealand Government had boldly stepped out to announce that people should choose, take self responsibility for their savings and future retirement and not save by compulsory means for Government Superannuation, answer KIWI SAVER: however with recent rorts, financial institutions misleading the public with untrue accounts of performance already emerging, to the willing “want to save for my retirement “ the customer/investor ( who do not have a commerce degree) who is going to repay the investor their money saved lost on the stock exchange, portfolios gone sour, fraud, mismanaged managed funds, bonds losing value? The Government?

What about the older population that have saved for years, where did the consolidated fund go? Or those that lost everything at the hands of failures by the professionals and financial institutions, mis – managed funds. Is it just ‘tough luck’ ? Or is it the customer did not read enough, understand enough, maybe it was their fault they did not have a commerce degree!!!

To regulate, put in a ‘watch dog’ is just like opening a new pack of expensive cards of over-paid bureaucrats. For such a small populated country a simple percentage of money earned should go into a government superannuation fund that is held, not spent/squandered by the government, that earns interest. Just like a bank.

Ain’t a mechanic and don’t have a commerce degree, perhaps granny was right, put it under the mattress, might not earn interest but at least you have not lost everything.

( Whistlers Mother painting by James McNeill Whistler 1871 )

Granny

Keep it in the Bank?

New Zealand had the National Superannuation, dumped into the Consolidated Fund that seem to vanish like a ghost out the back door. Then Kiwi Saver, the question is where does that money go.?

It is swallowed up by a extraordinary tapestry of portfolios that once one retires would they still be active, healthy or slide into the financial abysses as many financial institutions have of recent.

Portfolios sold between one company and another, tracking “your saving” is worst than a drunken mystery tour in a bus.

Financial houses of the managed funds many unqualified or even understand the market and are/were commission driven and driven by greed and over inflated egos’.

A lot of New Zealanders would like to save, even a clean up of the financial market place, who would trust them, let alone the fact many New Zealanders wages are so poor there is not the money to save.

Playing with numbers creating ‘average’ representation of income for those ( many thousands of families) are below the average earnings it is no wonder the country is becoming poorer by the day.

If the top earners are looked after and the working people are shut out in the cold what is the expectation of the psychology of the social fabric.?

The ordinary people understand the corporate director, or franchise owner, or the man who owns the business takes the risk and should be rewarded as such, however not to the point of million dollar bonuses, government rorts that in the civil sense go unpunished, greed that impoverishes the back bones of the country which is the working man.

Is New Zealand turning into a sweat shop country? The underbelly of society in New Zealand is poverty, hungry children and crime, violence and crimes of family abuse, child abuse, surely some spawned from frustration, stress, a country inept to care for the special needs people, the elderly, the disabled and importantly the contributor to the wealth of the country the working man.

New Zealand has every opportunity to show case a country rich in natural resources, demonstrate that a financial national programme for superannuation that cannot be squandered by successive governments, is it not better to have a modest percentage of interest on that money than as recent events have shown like a pack of cards fold by the rotten hand dealt by financial institutions.

Kiwi saver? Is a rort, put it into the bank or as granny did under the mattress. Why give your hard earned cash to some-one you do not know to “save” for you, use your money to expand or prop up a company, rather than the company expand by its’ own merits on the foundations good business.

In today’s climate the real question is :

“Could you afford to leave a thousand dollars on the street and walk away and trust it is there the next day?”

The rural district some quite isolated have one broadcaster that is reliable, informative, for local content, international content and above all quality.

A cross section extraordinary programmes that reach into the heart of the city to the understanding the agriculture sector for example the riveting story of the apple named “Mrs. Grants Last Stand.”

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/highlights/spectrum3

Mrs Grant had tied herself to her favourite apple tree to stop her husband bulldozing it down.

A wonderful story of the true Kiwi spirit to save heritage colonial past.

True Story from Christchurch Electronic Factory Tait Electronics.

National Radio New Zealand

she sat at her workstation

knowing she was the lucky one

of the factory crew

sitting at the window

winding the electronic cables

she had a view.

Headset on her head

listening to radio new zealand

‘got her ears on’ so they said

they often looked at her nodding head

hands busy winding

sitting alone

at the window.

Sun streaming over the sill

parents would bring her the kid’s homework

no matter the subject

the answer carefully pencilled in.

she would converse on any matter

whenever one had time

politics, sport, books,

racing be it bikes or horses

on medicine to food

and tantalising courses.

She could talk about money

any country, cross great racial divides

philosophical opinions

americas cup

tourist weather

and jibes.

The workbench was empty one day                                                          

sun streamed across the still

headset hanging on her chair

her winding machine still

word raced around “she not well indeed quite ill”

visited her in hospital

before she passed on

she was asked about her vast knowledge

told how she was valued

from adult to children

just before she went

with her last breath nearly spent

“Listen to my headset

national radio . That bought me love

excitement, joy with stories

that could bring tears

as I sat alone at the window all those years.

The sun warming me streaming over the sill

I learnt a diverse spectrum of the world beyond from a

wonderful selection of radio hosts

and saturday by kim hill

every day I traveled

as every day I was schooled  (for i never was lucky to go to a real school)

so on my seat or on my stool

knowledge gained and I be well traveled and i never left my seat “

then her heart gave a final beat

quietly at peace

she went to sleep.

dreams of travel …………………. No advertisements just a sensory input allowing the dreams. A wake up call in the morning with the sound of a New Zealand native bird not the shrill of jingles advertising canned food. Can the idea in changing  the format and keep the funding …….. it is our radio, the peoples radio.