Nats OK with Guardians

The Government won't be appointing the Guardians to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund until after the election.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen announced, several weeks ago, a list of six people he proposed to appoint as Guardians to the fund.

Former Colonial New Zealand managing director David May has been picked as the chairman and ex-National MP Doug Graham has been selected to be the deputy chairman.

As part of the appointment process Cullen is required to consult with other political parties.

He wrote to them on June 10 and gave them a week to express their views.

The National Party has given qualified support for the nominations.

"We don't agree with the fund however could see no objection to the Guardians he was appointing," superannuation spokesman Gerry Brownlee says.

"We don't see any reason to object to any of those people."

Brownlee says if National wins the election it won't be continuing with the fund.

"We don't believe it's going to be a successful fund," he says.

The other four nominations are:

• Dr Michaela Anderson: Director of Policy and Research for the Association of Superannuation Funds in Australia.
• Ira Bing: a private investor with a strong investment banking background in Britain and with Merrill Lynch in Europe.
• Brian Gaynor: a respected independent investment analyst and a director of the New Zealand Investment Trust Plc.
• Bridget Wickham: Chief Executive of the University of Auckland Development and an experienced senior company executive.

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