Brash gets super role

Former Reserve Bank governor Don Brash is the National Party’s new superannuation spokesman.

The role has been handled – at least nominally – by Ilam MP Gerry Brownlee since party leader Bill English to ok over form Jenny Shipley, al though English himself has made most of the policy pronouncements on the issue.

There was something of a minor hiccup yesterday when the reshuffle was announced as superannuation was left off the list of new responsibilities distributed to media.

However a spokeswoman for English says the role has been folded back into finance – Brash’s main role. The omission of superannuation from the list as a specific role appears to have been a product of the rushed release o f the reshuffle -–the shake-up was originally scheduled to take place next week, but was brought forward when Prime Minister Helen Clark announced her new ministry on Wednesday.

The appointment is a highly significant one – Brash looks set to bring some much-needed intellectual clout to the party’s policy development. While there are sceptics about how Brash will handle the rough and tumble and general rawness of political debate, especially in the House, there are few doubts about his policy heft.

Brash’s publicly stated views on superannuation have leant towards some sort of compulsory savings approach. In his speech to the ‘Knowledge Wave’ conference last year, the then Reserve Bank governor suggested that "some kind of mandatory savings scheme as one contribution to improving our growth performance," although "the case is not yet conclusively proven, and I would prefer to see more informed debate on the subject".