Dear Prime Minister Ardern,

Firstly congratulations on doing something for the benefit of impoverished children and their families but you seem to have forgotten that there are over 90,000 elderly impoverished by the imposition of the wrongly applied 1938 pension legislation that is Section 70, Social Security Act 1964.
The act is supposed to ensure that anyone who has worked overseas and is entitled to receive that country's Tier 1 govt funded pension and that pension is deducted from their separate entitlement to govt funded NZ Superannuation and which is correct, its like receiving two unemployment benefits from two countries.
The misuse of the legislation also means that our overseas Tier 2 self funded social insurance govt pensions are also subject to deduction from our separate entitlement to NZ Superannuation.
These contributory pensions are denied the same recognition as private contributory pensions and as such successive govts have in fact been guilty of state theft of our property as this is what they are in fact, recognised by the UN Convention on Human Rights.

In 2005 your much vaunted mentor Helen Clark came to power and formed a coalition with NZ1st which then forced a Ministry of Social Development review on the unfair treatment of overseas Tier 2 pensions.
The review concluded that the legislation was "outdated and ad hoc, unfair, discriminatory and inequitable".
In the previous year the MSD and Treasury also did a review of the treatment of these pensions and it too concluded Section 70 unfair and discriminatory.

Both the reviews and their recommendations for fair treatment were ignored.
Winston Peters became Foreign Secretary and Helen Clark also went onto ignore a petition by the British Pensioners Association and this state imposed impoverishment of so many tens of thousands of elderly continued.

In 2004 in the Auckland High Court Judge Doogue in the MSD v Social Security Appeal Authority ruled in part that the the Fijian National Provident Fund, much like the UK National Insurance Fund, that also receives social Insurance contributions from employers and employees, results in its pension NOT being subjected to Section 70 because his ruling said that the pension, even though administered by the Fijian govt was not by and on behalf of the govt, a stipulation of Section 70 but by and on behalf of the contributors.
I have checked and the ruling still stands in law yet all other such overseas pensions are subject to Section 70.

In 2014 sixteen of us Section 70 victims took the govt to the UN Council of Human Rights with over whelming evidence including the govt's own reviews plus HRC reviews plus much more in a challenge to end this human rights abuse.
The govt response, signed off by Anne Tolley and obtained under the OIA showed that the govt was forced to lie by stating all evidence was "unsupporting information and made it difficult for the govt to understand the nature of the complaints" and the UK pensions of my wife and I were quoted wrongly and misleadingly in an effort to nullify our challenges.
We all lost but next time if this crime continues our experience will mean a more robust challenge.

I have an audio recording of admittances by Grant Robertson and David Cunliffe in a Labour meeting leadership bid in Nelson that these stolen overseas pensions were the subject of many complaints from their constituents and needed sorting out.
Grant Robertson has chosen to ignore his words.

So I am asking, you will your govt continue to impoverish what is now over 90,000 elderly and will your working knowledge gained through working with Ruth Dyson on the subject, plus Labour's pledge to end the rort be consigned to the dustbin of political lies and empty promises?

It seems very likely as Labour and NZ1st are again in coalition, Winston Peters is Foreign Secretary and the continuing impoverishment of us elderly has continued and not even been mentioned in your so called magnificent first 100 days in office.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Newcombe

Dear Clare-Louise Chapman,

My question was directed at Prime Minister Ardern, I do know she worked on the impoverishment that Section 70 has on around 90,000 ofvus elderly now.
Labour had reform on its agenda so it cannot ignore this injustice.
Jacinda Ardern was the Labour representative on the 2012 Select Committee on Social Welfare and along with NZ1ST and the Greens called for a Revue of Section 70.
For you or her to pass this on to Carmel Sepuloni is a breach of my right to a reply from the Prime Minister.
You can take this back to the Prime Minister and ask her to fulfil her responsibility and explain why we Section 70 victims are not worthy of her consideration.
She talks of her concerns of equality and fairness for all but in the end she is an ageist, an abuser of us elderly.
Ask her to read all the MSD reviews that prove Section 70 is an abortion of our human rights and then to read the 2004 High Court Sant Raj Rai case where judge Doogue ruled pensions born out of Social insurance employer/employee contributions are not subject to Section 70, the MSD fought the ruling and lost, the ruling still remains in law my UK pension mirrors the ruling and this will be tested in the courts.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Newcombe