Roy Reid becomes Grey Power’s national president
Roy Reid of Takaka, now heads Grey Power New Zealand which has 80,000 members and 76 branches. Photo: Neil Wilson.
Golden Bay Grey Power branch president, Roy Reid of Takaka, now heads a nationwide organisation with 80,000 members and 76 branches.
Roy was the vice president of Grey Power New Zealand and was recently elevated to the top job when the national president stood down due to ill health. Roy has been a director of the Nelson/Marlborough/West Coast Zone of Grey Power for five years and the national vice-president .for about a year.
Being the organisation’s president means Roy attends four three-day Grey Power board meetings a year, in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch, as well as the organisation’s annual general meeting. On top of this, Grey Power office-bearers go to Wellington twice a year to meet with politicians and bureaucrats to lobby on behalf of the elderly.
“Grey Power came about 26 years ago when the government of the day was threatening to impose a surcharge regime on national super,” says Roy. “Our main objective is still to lobby for the welfare of the elderly. We’re apolitical, not affiliated to any political party. That means we can talk to anyone. Because of the size of our membership we’re a sizeable voting bloc so we never have any trouble getting meetings with the politicians and bureaucrats.”
Roy’s next trip to Wellington is in three weeks’ time and he expects to meet with ministers Bill English, Paula Bennett and Peter Dunne, and party leaders, co-leaders and spokespeople Russel Norman, Annette King, Kevin Hague, Rodney Hide, Winnie Laban and Jim Anderton.
“We’ll meet Diana Crossan, the retirement commissioner, too,” says Roy. “The ministries we deal with most of all are health and social development. We have to keep lobbying them on the ideas we want to see advanced, like waiting lists for elective surgery. We’re concerned about the cuts to home care and the general cuts in the health sector. Most of all we’d like to see superannuation taken out of the control of the politicians. It’s too important to be treated like a football.”
Grey Power is also concerned about the steady increase in local body rates.
“Our members are mostly on fixed incomes and the regular six to seven per cent increases in rates are too hard on them. The rates rises are more than the rate of inflation. Councils seem to have the right to demand more and more for the right to live in your own home.”
Roy says that GST will be a “warm topic” in Grey Power’s discussions in Wellington.
“Some economists are talking about inflation of about five or six per cent,” says Roy. “Our members who depend on their super to survive only get adjustments on 1 April each year, using the previous year’s CPI [Consumer Price Index] increase and movement in the average wage after tax. We’re looking for two adjustments a year. We’re interested in an idea the Minister for Revenue, Peter Dunne, is talking about. He’d base the super on the treasury’s prediction for inflation 12 months in advance, then adjusting it later to fit what actually happens. We’ll be talking to him about that.”
Along with rates, superannuation will continue to be a big issue for Grey Power in the future, says Roy.
“The retirement commissioner is likely to recommend an increase in the age of eligibility for national super in her next report to the Government. We’re totally opposed to that and I heard Bill English saying only today that the Government’s not interested in it either. The worry is that these ideas keep getting dropped in to the Government’s ear and sometimes they listen. We’ve got to be vigilant.”
Grey Power is “dead against” the privatisation of water that many councils seem to favour.
“I don’t think most people understand the dangers of that idea,” says Roy. “We were vocal against that when it came up locally and we’ll oppose it again.”
Grey Power, which is open to everyone 50 and over, has about 550 members in Golden Bay, and Roy says that while that is an encouraging number, the organisation’s meetings do not always attract the support they require.
“It’s a pity because the people who don’t come to the meetings end up missing out,” says Roy. “Grey Power offers older people the chance to make a real difference.”
Neil Wilson
