Printed from https://fyi.org.nz/request/14050-why-do-you-continue-to-breach-international-conventions-over-migrants-overseas-govt-social-insurance-pensions?unfold=1 on November 22, 2024 07:55

Why do you continue to breach international conventions over migrants overseas govt social insurance pensions?

Robert Newcombe made this Official Information request to Jacinda Ardern

Response to this request is long overdue. By law Jacinda Ardern should have responded by now (details and exceptions). The requester can complain to the Ombudsman.

From: Robert Newcombe

Dear Jacinda Ardern,

In 2015 you stood up in Parliament and condemned Section 70, Social Security Act as unfair and especially the Spousal Provision as a human rights violation.
Despite government reviews of 2004/5 condemning the means testing of overseas social insurance pensions as unfair, discriminatory, inequitable and out of date, your govt still forcefully impoverishes over 93,000 elderly with all the financial, physical and emotional problems.
This cruel law is not extended to similarly worker/employer social insurance pensions from China so why is this?

In 2018 your govt signed the UN Global Compact for Migration yet still breaches Objective 22 which calls for the portability of such social insurance pensions, why is this?

In November the Spousal Provision ends and not before time, it was agreed in 2008 between the govt and Retirement Commissioner but this cash grab off us vulnerable elderly has been ignored along with your condemnation until now.
This is an admition of wrong doing by the govt so why is it only around 500 elderly are let off the cash grab hook by the ending of the Spousal yet over 93,000 elderly are still affected by the now rewritten Section 70 by your insistence on abusing our human rights that should be protected under international law, why do you persist with such cruelty?

I want you to answer these questions yourself PM and not bat it away to Carmel Sepuloni who herself is just one of many human rights abusing Ministers in your govt.
In the end the world will get to know that this is New Zealand's shameful treatment of immigrants and returned Kiwis who have worked overseas.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Newcombe

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From: Rt. Hon Jacinda Ardern

Kia ora,

Thanks very much for taking the time to get in touch with Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern.

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From: Rt. Hon Jacinda Ardern

I am writing on behalf of the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, to acknowledge receipt of your Official Information Act request.

Your request will be responded to under the provisions of the Official Information Act 1982.

Yours sincerely

Dinah Okeby
Office of the Prime Minister

Authorised by Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern MP, Parliament Buildings Wellington 6012

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Newcombe [mailto:[FYI request #14050 email]]
Sent: Thursday, 29 October 2020 8:53 AM
To: J Ardern (MIN) <[Jacinda Ardern request email]>
Subject: Official Information request - Why do you continue to breach international conventions over migrants overseas govt social insurance pensions?

Dear Jacinda Ardern,

In 2015 you stood up in Parliament and condemned Section 70, Social Security Act as unfair and especially the Spousal Provision as a human rights violation.
Despite government reviews of 2004/5 condemning the means testing of overseas social insurance pensions as unfair, discriminatory, inequitable and out of date, your govt still forcefully impoverishes over 93,000 elderly with all the financial, physical and emotional problems.
This cruel law is not extended to similarly worker/employer social insurance pensions from China so why is this?

In 2018 your govt signed the UN Global Compact for Migration yet still breaches Objective 22 which calls for the portability of such social insurance pensions, why is this?

In November the Spousal Provision ends and not before time, it was agreed in 2008 between the govt and Retirement Commissioner but this cash grab off us vulnerable elderly has been ignored along with your condemnation until now.
This is an admition of wrong doing by the govt so why is it only around 500 elderly are let off the cash grab hook by the ending of the Spousal yet over 93,000 elderly are still affected by the now rewritten Section 70 by your insistence on abusing our human rights that should be protected under international law, why do you persist with such cruelty?

I want you to answer these questions yourself PM and not bat it away to Carmel Sepuloni who herself is just one of many human rights abusing Ministers in your govt.
In the end the world will get to know that this is New Zealand's shameful treatment of immigrants and returned Kiwis who have worked overseas.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Newcombe

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From: Tabitha Spicer

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Dear Robert Newcombe  

 

On behalf of Raj Nahna, I attach a letter in response to your
correspondence received on 29 October 2020.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Tabitha Spicer

Private Secretary (Administration) │Office of the Prime Minister

DDI  : + 64 4 817 8700

Level 9 Executive Wing, Parliament Buildings, Wellington 6011

 

 

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Robert Newcombe left an annotation ()

Dear Prime Minister Ardern,
I have had what I expected, a cop out by you and the request for an explanation side stepped by suggesting the questions be directed to the Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni, who having been contacted before by me, like you feels its OK the use racist and ageist legislation to impoverish and blight the lives of tens of thousands of elderly by denying them the right to receive overseas Social Insurance pensions that are protected by the International Convention of Civil and Political Rights that New Zealand is bound to by law.
You are excellent at selling yourself to the public and indeed the world as a modern caring politician yet the fact that you carry on this what could be called a state crime against us elderly is not the case.
You are paid by the people of this country to care for all citizens yet all we hear is gender rights and the human rights of GLBTQ and rights under the Treaty yet you have stamped on the rights of us elderly and declared us invisible.
My question is directed to you and it is for you to the explain why you persist in what you knowingly have expressed as unfair and discriminatory.

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Jan McKeogh left an annotation ()

Please can we have these questions answered fairly and honestly.

Please do not quote the usual about being fair to all New Zealanders who have lived here all their lives and being one of the reasons to deduct their overseas pensions from NZS.

Please explain why the deductions continue when for the most, overseas pensions are employee/ employer funds. This retirement source is not universal like NZS is.

Please acknowledge that many of the retirees in NZ having this deduction have been in NZ longer than any other country.

Please don’t ask MSD to write pages of antediluvian drivel that doesn’t fit today’s world.

Jan McKeogh

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Robert Newcombe left an annotation ()

Please let me remind you Prime Minister that you are elected to represent and protect the human rights of all all New Zealanders something you have plainly forgotten.
My wife and I have had official figures supplied by the MSD which should be renamed the Ministry for Seniors Deprivation which shows we have been deprived of our right to over $140,000 of UK state pensions which are the result of social insurance contributions by us and our employers into the UK National Insurance fund and which is a separate entity to govt which funds social security benefits under which our pensions are classified.
In your video in Parliament in 2015 you state that you also have such a pension having worked for Tony Blair at one time, you cannot therefore hide behind any lack of knowledge about such matters.
Like many tens of thousands of others impoverished by your callous disregard for the damage you do to the lives of us elderly we have had to borrow money on our home to survive.
Your govt knows this legislated theft of what is intangible property rights, incomes, is wrong because unheralded, the cruel part of the law which deprives a persons right to NZ Super is diminished if they have a partner with an overseas self funded govt pension known as the Spousal Provision, thankfully ended on the 9 November and also voluntary contributions based state pensions become exempt.
The stone age law you use to help prop up your $471,000 salary plus a generous contributory scheme funded by tax payers and life long perks is now in contention.
Section 187-192 of the Social Security after the rewrite of the Social Security you talk about in the video still states that if a person's overseas govt pension is "administered" by the overseas govt issuing the pension, (our British pensions are not issued by UK govt but the National Insurance Fund), then they are to be "captured".
The law does not distinguish the difference between state or self funding and neither does it distinguish between compulsary or voluntary contribution based pensions.
Our State Earnings Related Pension Scheme SERPS pensions were not compulsary as they could be contracted out into the employer's scheme so your insane policy states that pensions out of SERPS contributions are "captured" yet pensions out of the same contributions paid into the employer's scheme are kept.
Whilst you hide behind your desk, too morally frightened to admit you are as useless as you are uncaring, at some stage you will have to come out the shadows partnered by Carmel Sepuloni who together are a disgrace to the name of New Zealand and its claim to be a modern country and respectfull of human rights.
Kindly step forward and explain to those whose lives you continue to blight as to why you have reneged now you are in power on the promises you made in opposition and in particular why you continue to breach Objective 22 of the UN Compact for Migration, the portability of social security benefits, our paid pensions, which your govt signed in December 2020.
Remembering of course that exactly the same kind contibutory social insurance Chinese state pensions are exempt.
A Chinese person can come here aged 55 under the family reunion scheme, need never work could even be on a benefit and at 65 with the necessary 10 year residency criteria can receive their Chinese state pension yet Kiwis and immigrants who have worked overseas and paid for such pensions are deprived their right to such enjoyment.
Whilst New Zealand bends the knee to China, perversely this is correct, its state pension should be received, Objective 22, why racially is this not extended to the over 93,000 of us Kiwis affected?

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From: Robert Newcombe

Dear Rt. Hon Jacinda Ardern,

Please let me remind you Prime Minister that you are elected to represent and protect the human rights of all all New Zealanders something you have plainly forgotten.
My wife and I have had official figures supplied by the MSD which should be renamed the Ministry for Seniors Deprivation which shows we have been deprived of our right to over $140,000 of UK state pensions which are the result of social insurance contributions by us and our employers into the UK National Insurance fund and which is a separate entity to govt which funds social security benefits under which our pensions are classified.
In your video in Parliament in 2015 you state that you also have such a pension having worked for Tony Blair at one time, you cannot therefore hide behind any lack of knowledge about such matters.
Like many tens of thousands of others impoverished by your callous disregard for the damage you do to the lives of us elderly we have had to borrow money on our home to survive.
Your govt knows this legislated theft of what is intangible property rights, incomes, is wrong because unheralded, the cruel part of the law which deprives a persons right to NZ Super is diminished if they have a partner with an overseas self funded govt pension known as the Spousal Provision, thankfully ended on the 9 November and also voluntary contributions based state pensions become exempt.
The stone age law you use to help prop up your $471,000 salary plus a generous contributory scheme funded by tax payers and life long perks is now in contention.
Section 187-192 of the Social Security after the rewrite of the Social Security you talk about in the video still states that if a person's overseas govt pension is "administered" by the overseas govt issuing the pension, (our British pensions are not issued by UK govt but the National Insurance Fund), then they are to be "captured".
The law does not distinguish the difference between state or self funding and neither does it distinguish between compulsary or voluntary contribution based pensions.
Our State Earnings Related Pension Scheme SERPS pensions were not compulsary as they could be contracted out into the employer's scheme so your insane policy states that pensions out of SERPS contributions are "captured" yet pensions out of the same contributions paid into the employer's scheme are kept.
Whilst you hide behind your desk, too morally frightened to admit you are as useless as you are uncaring, at some stage you will have to come out the shadows partnered by Carmel Sepuloni who together are a disgrace to the name of New Zealand and its claim to be a modern country and respectfull of human rights.
Kindly step forward and explain to those whose lives you continue to blight as to why you have reneged now you are in power on the promises you made in opposition and in particular why you continue to breach Objective 22 of the UN Compact for Migration, the portability of social security benefits, our paid pensions, which your govt signed in December 2020.
Remembering of course that exactly the same kind contibutory social insurance Chinese state pensions are exempt.
A Chinese person can come here aged 55 under the family reunion scheme, need never work could even be on a benefit and at 65 with the necessary 10 year residency criteria can receive their Chinese state pension yet Kiwis and immigrants who have worked overseas and paid for such pensions are deprived their right to such enjoyment.
Whilst New Zealand bends the knee to China, perversely this is correct, its state pension should be received, Objective 22, why racially is this not extended to the over 93,000 of us Kiwis affected?

Yours sincerely,

Robert Newcombe

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From: Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern

Kia ora,

Thanks very much for taking the time to get in touch with Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern.

We are currently experiencing unprecedented numbers of emails about
COVID-19. If you are writing about an issue relating to COVID-19, here’s a
list of links that you may find helpful:

[1]Latest Government COVID-19 info

[2]For COVID-19 financial assistance

[3]For business and tax info

[4]For up to date travel advice

[5]For immigration and visa advice

If you are showing symptoms of COVID-19, please call your local GP.

We hope one of the above links helps answer your question, if not we will
try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks again and please take care.

Authorised by Jacinda Ardern MP, Parliament Buildings, Wellington

 

 

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From: Robert Newcombe

Dear Jacinda Ardern,

As per expected you refuse to answer the question because morally you are unable too.
I have voted many times but never have I come across a more duplicitous politician such as you.
You understand fully what my UK state pensions involve having worked in the UK too.
You even talked about this state crime on the rewrite of the Social Security Act and to rob us elderly with all the knowledge and commitments to change you made just goes to show how even in politics how low you have become.
There is little point in writing to an empty shell, we will have to see if the Ombudman's office can help but as time has shown dealing with the Human Rights Commission, the Office of Human Rights Proceedings and especially the Human Rights Tribunal, the tentacles of govt ensnare all chances of redress.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Newcombe.

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From: Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern

Kia ora

 

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