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Opinion
As Trevor Mallard slinks out the back door of parliament in a few weeks, it would be fascinating to know what his superannuation is. According to the Remuneration Authority website, Mallard (and everyone else) received 16 per cent of his salary as an ‘employer’ contribution from 1993, rising to 20 per cent from 2003 to the present. According to the register of members’ pecuniary interests, he is also involved in the Government Superannuation Fund from his time as temporary MP for Hamilton West, and (as I understand it) will be paid an annuity from this.
With nearly three decades of compounding returns and, one presumes, Mallard himself making his own contributions, the amount must be in the two million dollar range (his fund manager is Craigs Investment Partners, so let’s not get too carried away! Haha!) plus the annuity from the Government Superannuation Fund. Mallard has certainly done well out of your tax dollars, especially when you consider everybody else has to make do with a three or four per cent ‘employer’ contribution, and self employed people pay the entire KiwiSaver amount themselves.
If he invested his super in a Craigs Investment Partners balanced fund and received an average return after fees and taxes of, say, five per cent, it’s a nice wee earner of at least $100,000 per year. Not a bad top up to an ambassadorial salary, although Mallard must be a bit miffed he can no longer send the wife out to work – (bet she wants to go to Eire too!) – in order to ‘keep him’ in the style to which he’s become accustomed.
Mallard has good reason to dread the change in circumstances: he only need cast a glance at former colleagues to see what could be in store for him 15 minutes after National takes office next year.
- Chris Finlayson has been reduced to slinking around the District Court as a jobbing barrister.
- Nick Smith is finding his $87,000 annuity from the Government Superannuation Fund such a bore he’s trying to become mayor of Nelson to make ends meet.
- Paula Bennett had to become a professional charades player to get by!
- Bill English’s reduced circumstances required him to join the board of Wesfarmers and ‘endure’ meetings with Mike Chaney (for which I have nothing but the deepest pity) in order to feed his 20 children.
- Lees-Galloway had to pretend to be a nurse or something. Weird.
But being an ex-MP isn’t the end of the world. The two longest-serving ex-MPs (if I can put it like that) were Murray Rose and Lorrie Hunter: Rose, who lived for 49 years after departing parliament, made a fortune out of farming and derivatives speculation and only died about a year ago; Hunter lived for over 51 years, albeit in obscurity, and did alright for himself as a professional mediator. There are quite a few ex-MPs who have been for decades floating around: Barry Brill (since 1981), Marilyn Waring, Pat Hunt, John Kirk, Geoff Thompson and Aussie Malcolm (since 1984). None of them seem to miss the place very much and they’ve done alright for themselves. There is hope for Trevor yet!
