Severity of tax and penalty reaches the northern group

Dear Editor,While there is no Grey Power movement in the sister Islands, the tax of the NZ pension has a great effect here as well. My Mama Lui in Pukapuka just had her NZ pension cut in half from $1500 a month to $750. This money is entirely spent in the Cook Islands on food and provisions for the whole extended family. She spent some twenty years working in factories in Hellensville, for her hard-earned pension. She returned to Pukapuka to live out her last years in peace with her family but the severity of the tax and penalty makes her, and other Cook Islanders, less likely to return. While I understand that some tax on the pension is needed, having her pension halved is a huge tax especially given that the money stays in the Cook Islands through spending anyhow. I thought we wanted to keep our elderly in the Cook Islands and especially in the Pa Enua? Concerned northerner (Name and address supplied)

Dear Editor,While there is no Grey Power movement in the sister Islands, the tax of the NZ pension has a great effect here as well. My Mama Lui in Pukapuka just had her NZ pension cut in half from $1500 a month to $750. This money is entirely spent in the Cook Islands on food and provisions for the whole extended family. She spent some twenty years working in factories in Hellensville, for her hard-earned pension. She returned to Pukapuka to live out her last years in peace with her family but the severity of the tax and penalty makes her, and other Cook Islanders, less likely to return. While I understand that some tax on the pension is needed, having her pension halved is a huge tax especially given that the money stays in the Cook Islands through spending anyhow. I thought we wanted to keep our elderly in the Cook Islands and especially in the Pa Enua? Concerned northerner (Name and address supplied)