Government Superannuitants Association of New Zealand Incorporated

01/05/2017

http://upload.gsa.org.nz/upload/cms/AN%20Apr%202017%20Final.pdf

The latest edition of Annuity News is now available on our web site at the above link. Copies are also in the mail (or email if you have selected that option) along with local branch newsletters. There is a lot of interesting reading.
In particular, please note the section on page 3 relating the Parliamentary petition which we intend to lodge later this year. It is time the unfair treatment of those who retired before 1985 was addressed. They are our oldest and most vulnerable members.
If you go to the web site you can also download and print a Petition signature sheet. Collect as many signatures as you can (they don't have to be GSA members) and return the documents to GSA national office.

09/01/2017

The observant among our members will have noted that the Members Forum has disappeared from our web site. Over the four years it was in place it attracted very little use and it was decided that the administartive overheads required to keep it going were not cost effective. We believe that if our members feel the need to discuss issues in an online forum they will be able to do so in our Facebook Group.

09/01/2017

Happy New Year to all our members. We hope that the festive season has met expectations and that everyone is ready to hit the ground running for 2017 - despite the less than seasonal weather.

05/12/2016

Members may be interested to note that at the last Annual Council in September it was agreed that the GSA would no longer pursue the "Tax Equity" issue. In very simple terms this issue was our attempt to have the reduction factor that is applied to our annuities before we receive them to more appropriately equate to current tax rates. Currently, for most of us, the reduction factor is 30%. We have long felt that it was unfair for annuitants to effectively be paying the equivalent of 30% tax on the first dollar they receive in their annuity.

However, after many years of trying, including a petition to Parliament, we have given up beating our heads against a brick wall. This issue has been removed from our Strategic Plan. It may be revisited some time in the future should circumstances change significantly enough to suggest that a renewed effort might be worthwhile.

05/12/2016

The GSA Constitution allows for a Board comprising an elected President and Vice President, five elected members, and two appointed members. The elected members were elected at the Annual Council in September. Two additional members have now been appointed. They are Rob Brangwin (Hawkes Bay) and Winston Grantham (Lake Taupo). Winston served on the Board last Year.

The full Board now looks like this:

President: Janice Campbell (Wellington)

Vice President: Bryan Whisker (Wellington/Wairarapa)

Members: Robert Brangwin (Hawkes Bay)

Dallas Elvy (Wellington)

Winston Grantham (Lake Taupo)

Tony Hamilton (Northland)

Bill Robertson (Wellington)

Mike Smith (Wellington)

Diane Ward (Nelson)

25/10/2016

Dear Members. The latest Annuity News is now being distributed. You can also find it in the GSA News section of our web site. For some great reading simply go to

http://upload.gsa.org.nz/upload/cms/Annuity%20News%20(Final)%20October%202016.pdf

The GSA represents GSF & NPF contributors and annuitants. Protect your annuity; Join the GSA. Be sure you are getting a fair deal.

09/09/2016

We have had enquiries from some members questioning an apparent increase in their annuity payments this week. We have approached the GSFA about this and here is their response:

"Yes we have made an extra payment to some annuitants with respect to their COLA adjustments. As part of the development of the new business system we identified an issue in the existing PICK system regarding the application of COLA where the increase in the CPI was less than 0.5%. This resulted in some members receiving a slightly lower entitlement. We have now amended their payments going forward and paid them some back pay plus interest. The additional amounts relate to COLA for 1999 and 2016 only."

12/08/2016

We have been a bit quiet on Facebook lately. For that we apologise. It has been a busy time in National Office lately. I am sure you will all be delighted to know that we continue to work hard in your interests.

The 2016 GSA Annual Council meeting will take place at the Brentwood Hotel in Wellington over the weekend of 3/4 September. The GSA Council is the governing body and the annual Council meeting is the forum where GSA policy and strategy is discussed. It is also where the award of Life Membership is made to deserving long-term stalwarts of the organsation, and it is the forum for electing the GSA Board that will conduct GSA business for the next year. Each branch sends two delegates to Council and voting rights are related to branch size. The Council agenda and papers for consideration have been provided to branches. If anyone is interested in seeing what will be discussed this year, you can either contact your local branch secretary (0800 888 7006) or check out the members publication and documents section of the GSA web site www.gsa.org.nz

05/05/2016

The recent recruiting campaign where we placed a letter from our President in with the Datacom annual Cost of Living mail out to GSF and NPF annuitants has been an outstanding success. The month of April saw an increase of over 500 annuitant members and there are almost another 800 pending, hopefully cleared by the 19 May pay day. Given that many spouses and partners are also joining we are looking forward to a potential overall membership boost in the order of 1500 to 1800. That is good news.

05/05/2016

Greetings all. The April Annuity News and your local branch newsletter were posted out last week. Even with the vagaries of our postal service they should have reached your post box by now. Comments welcome.

28/04/2016

The April 2016 Annuity News is now on the GSA web site and can be viewed by following this link. It's a good read, even if we do say so ourselves.

http://upload.gsa.org.nz/upload/cms/Annuity%20News%20April%202016.pdf

You can also find your local branch newsletters on the branch web page.

Go to www.gsa.org.nz

12/04/2016

There has been some comment about the fact that GSF and NPF annuities received no Cost of Living Adjustment (CoLA) this year whereas NZ Super received a 2.73% increase. Our CoLA is linked directly to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as explained in a previous post. Unless the CPI reaches a threshold of 0.5% there is no adjustment to annuities that year (in 2015 the CPI rose just 0.1%). However, NZ Super is not linked to the CPI. It is set at 66% of average incomes. The fact that there has been an increase suggests that incomes have outpaced inflation.