Clayton's Support For Savings Scheme From Act

"ACT's 'support' for the referendum on retirement savings is the most exquisite piece of Clayton's support I have ever seen," the Environment Minister, Simon Upton, said today. Mr Upton was responding to ACT's announcement today that it will campaign for a Yes vote in the super referendum.

"ACT is 'supporting' a referendum on compulsory retirement savings but its support is conditional on the scheme being voluntary. It's like supporting the death penalty as long as no-one is executed.

"ACT knows that its proposal is an impossibility. Its announcement is a disingenuous attempt to get itself off a hook of its own making.

"ACT supports the privatisation of superannunation. It also knows that if savers aren't to end up falling back on taxpayers years down the line, they'll have to come up with all the rules and regulations that compulsory schemes require. But ACT knows that its core supporters loathe compulsion and regulation."

Mr Upton concluded, "ACT is trying to bridge the unbridgeable. In doing so it is signing up to a regulatory nightmare. It should leave Sir Roger Douglas' obsession back in the early 1970s where it belongs."