FNPF consultants Shauna Tomkins and the guitar-playing Geoff Rashbrooke (The Windy City Strugglers) have been engaged in a propaganda blitz aimed at justifying the actions of the Fund in reducing pensions.

Those of us who attended the May symposium that began the FNPF’s “consultation” on pensions, remember Ms Tomkins as a patronising, voluble and aggressive, smarty pants. She talked down to the locals and didn’t seem to be interested in answering too many questions.

 In a torrent of comment with Mr Rashbrooke in the Fiji Times recently, Ms Tomkins did nothing to repair the FNPF’s credibility.

In fact she succeeded in raising the question that will haunt the FNPF from now on: Where lies the truth?

Ms Tomkins and Mr Rashbrooke are obviously eager to please their client, the FNPF. So they won’t give an inch to the pensioner victims, most of whom are middle and working class.  Let them whistle. If they can’t afford bread, let them eat cake.

In their propaganda deluge, Ms Tomkins and Mr Rashbrooke have aligned themselves with the FNPF’s preferred method of communication: confuse the pensioners and the public; lay on the inconsistencies and discrepancies, and contemptuously push to one side the anguish felt by many of those being oppressed and discriminated against.  People don’t like change.  Tough, they’ll just have to get used to it.

Greybeard invites you now to consider just one of the inconsistencies that marked the recent utterances of Ms Tomkins and Mr Rashbrooke.

We are all acutely aware that the FNPF, from the start of its “consultations”, stressed that it could continue till 2050 or 2055 as it was presently structured.  Why then, we asked, was there such a mad rush to chop our pensions in advance? There has never been an answer to that.

But now Ms Tomkins and Mr Rashbrooke have reworked the math. They have thrown away without explanation the 40 or 45-year timeframe for the FNPF’s bankruptcy.

Their new claim is that the FNPF could be insolvent within seven years! In one fell swoop, 2050-2055 has become 2018!

So the FNPF, Ms Tomkins and Mr Rashbrooke got it wrong earlier. They were way out in their calculations. How very strange that the seven-year threat has only just surfaced. After all these months, it has appeared from nowhere. 

Is it any wonder that those who have been picked out for special treatment no longer believe what the FNPF says?

Where does the truth lie?

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We say: Peter Lomas,  get your blinkers off– or go back to Journalism School for a refresher! Also we recommend 1 tablespoon of imodium daily for several months. 

Fiji Sun: Fiji First with Seniors Plan.  (GreyPower substitute title: “Fiji First with Pension Cuts- Plan to Kill Seniors off”)

Fiji yesterday became the first country in the Pacific to launch a policy to safeguard the elderly  (GP: safeguard the elderly from getting FNPF pensions)

The 4 year plan to foster development in the care and welfare of senior citizens was launched in Suva (GP: in case they live longer than anticipated by the FNPF and Government)

The Fiji National Policy on Ageing was launched by UNFPA subregional director Dirk Jena. (GP: This UN agency clearly does not know the first thing about breaches of the rights of elderly persons by FNPF and Government, particularly their right to be heard in a court of law without interference of the judiciary by the executive- someone should tell HE Ban Ki Moon about the UNFPA’s ignorance in the Pacific and support for human rights violations in Fiji)

Speaking at the launch Mr Jena said the policy “truly is a pioneering practical homegrown document”  

“It is a  forward looking framework of preventative measures”  Mr Jena said.   (GP: Mr Jena will enjoy his own healthy UN retirement plan when the time comes, so what does he care what happens to the elderly pensioners in Fiji- this comment is a good example of telescopic philanthropy of the UN senior executives) 

The 4 main visions of the policy include:
Continue reading →

The simple question that Dr Shaista Shameem, counsel for Burness v FNPF and the AG has for Tompkins and Rashbrooke, upon reading the Fiji Times is this:

If, as Tompkins and Rashbrooke say, (1) FNPF pensions were ‘not contracts’ and (2) the FNPF pensioners were ‘winning at someone else’s expense‘ , why did the Government and FNPF (joined at the hip), and taking advice from the Solicitor General who is a party to the action, not allow the High Court to decide these legal questions? 

Surely these legal issues, since they have been challenged in the Burness case, can only be decided by a court of law? Why was there a need for FNPF and the Government to interfere with the independence of the judiciary by including section 11 (6) in Decree No 51? 

Dr Shameem is certain that neither Tomkins nor Rashbrooke (nor indeed the Solicitor General Christopher Pryde) would be allowed to get away with this type of blatant abuse of power in their own countries, namely Australia and New Zealand. Especially where a radical alternation in pension rights has been implemented without the due process of parliament. The NZ Law Society has already commented on Decree No 51 as purposely interfering with the power of a judge to decide a case already in the High Court. 

She says Tompkins, Rashbrooke and Pryde’s actions in discriminating against FNPF pensioners represent the worst form of neo-colonialism and export of neo-liberal market ideology to a Pacific Island nation.  Due to its political naiveté the Fiji Government has no idea what this new pension policy will mean for the people of Fiji in the long run. Aisake Taito’s lack of economic acumen is apparent every time he makes a press statement. 

Dr Shameem says the people of Fiji deserve better than carpetbaggers from Australia and New Zealand deciding their fate and they certainly deserve a lot better than Taito’s tight-shirted ‘attitude’ problem. 

What’s up with the FNPF now? Front page plus page 3 in the Fiji Times on Wednesday 14^th, front page and page 3 again today, Thursday 15^th. An we now have one Geoff Rashbrooke in the mix in addition to Shauna Tomkins and Stephen Mason. 

1: In Taito-speak we are told that the World Bank, the IMF and the Reserve Bank of Fiji ‘support’ the FNPF reforms. Unfortunately for the FNPF the Fiji Times reporter missed the underlying double-speak of the Taito-babble. 

2: On page one today, Ms Tomkins and Mr Rashbrooke are quoted thus…The reforms are comprehensive and address structure, solvency, refocus on retirement, prudential regulation, governance, greater independence from political interference and sound risk management. The reforms are robust and aim to avoid a repeat of current problems. 

This quote does not mention the arbitrary cutting of current pensions. It is concerned solely with the restructuring of the administration of the FNPF. It is obvious that ‘refocus on retirement’ refers to future pensioners. ‘Refocus on retirement’ cannot be interpreted to mean ‘focus on cutting current pensions. 

The IMF, World Bank and Reserve Bank of Fiji silence is equal to a screaming banshee. Where, in black and white, has one of these institutions declared that the arbitrary cutting of private contributory pensions is advisable? Nowhere. They haven’t and they won’t because the result would be uproar. 

Meanwhile, Tomkins, Rashbrooke and Mason can only stand aside while their words are mangled and misreported. Turn to page 3 to the last paragraph of today’s report. It states…”Pensioners are not being victimised although clearly some individuals will feel a greater financial impact than others”. This is reported as if a direct quote from Tomkins, Rashbrooke and Mason, and that is just too hard to believe they said that. 

Here’s more Taito-prattle. He says…Whilst we can only learn from our past, we should not dwell on it. Well, here’s a bit of Greypower logic for Taito – unless you dwell on your past you’ll learn nothing from it. Pensioners right now are certainly focussed on their past, many of them kicking themselves for not grabbing the lump sum and running with it. They are caught up in thoughts of ‘if only’.  

And he urges those ‘who might be affected to be selfless’. Taito-blab! It is not the pensioners who will need to be selfless – it is their children who will have to support them! Grandchildren? What should have gone towards their education and treats will now be spent on their grandparents; grandparents who are rightfully angry, resentful, and humiliated. 

All this Taito-gibbering in the Fiji Times does nothing but confirm that the FNPF board knows that it is WRONG – and several current pensioners, professional money-men, have the figures to prove that. So please, Taito and board, cut the crap? Don’t tell us again that pensions are being cut world-wide – we know they are – they are government pensions, not private pensions held in trust by a fund owned by its members. Stop telling us that you are being ‘fair to all’ because you are patently NOT. Stop telling us that we were enjoying ‘overly generous’ pensions as if you were doling out favours. 

Until the board goes public with concrete evidence that the IMF, the World Bank, the Reserve Bank of Fiji, and named ‘actuaries and legal experts’ did indeed advise the arbitrary cutting of current pensions, pensioners will not believe one word of Taito’s gibberish no matter how much he witters on.

Still no sign of Fast Talking High Flying Dave, but Pacific Sun has been using Air Pacific’s Boeing 737 aircraft to service the Nadi – Suva- Nadi route to transport passengers from Nadi to Nausori and back.

The question is what percentage of seats are filled each way, and how much money are we losing, by not using the ATR 42 or the Convair