Written By:
- Date published:
6:58 pm, September 14th, 2026 - 1 comment
Categories: kiwisaver, labour, national -
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Kiwisaver is the most personally consequential long term policy this election.
We need to do a side-by-side of the Labour and National policies.
This is what’s happening right now:
1. You contribute a minimum of 3.5% of your before-tax pay. You can put up to 6% of your pay into Kiwisaver if you want. For comparison in Australia the legal minimum employee contribution is 12%.
2. Your employer puts in at least 3.5% of your before-tax pay. But if you dial up your own savings to 10%, the employer still only has to put in 3.5%.
3. As of April 2028 you and your employer must both put in 4%.
4. You have to apply to IRD if you need to scale back your contribution.
This is what the two largest parties have as 2026 election policies:
| National | Labour | |
| Make Kiwisaver Compulsory | Yes. Starting July 2028 | Yes. Starting July 2028. |
| You have to contribute more into it | Yes. Gradual increase to 6% for both employees and employers by 2032 ie heading for a 12% contribution total. | Yes. Gradual increase to 6% by employers by 2032 |
| Compulsory for the self-employed? | Yes. Starting July 2028. | No. |
| Baby automatic enrolment? | Yes.Plus $1,500 to start with. | |
| Government contribution when parenting? | Yes. From Government | Yes. From government |
| Contributions if you keep working after 65? | Yes. | Yes. |
| Ban total remuneration contracts that absorb Employer Kiwisaver contributions? | No. | Yes. |
| Scrap the minimum payment employees make? | No. | Yes. |
New Zealanders have a total of $138 billion in total invested in Kiwisaver funds – that’s doubled since 2020. But over 1 million New Zealanders don’t contribute at all.
Kiwisaver started in 2007. Only National voting against it.
By comparison, NZSuperFund was started in 2001 and hasn’t hit $100 billion under management yet. Obviously their approach is a whole bunch more conservative than most of the Kiwisaver options. National voted against NZSuperFund as well.
National of course won’t say that forcing an increase the amount extracted out of your pay before tax, is not an increase in tax. It is.
National halved the Government contribution to Kiwisaver accounts.
In 2015 National cut out the $1,000 start bonus for Kiwisaver accounts.
National allowed certain categories of people to withdraw their Kiwisaver funds for non-residential housing.
National has voted down all efforts to ban “total remuneration contracts”.
So National is proposing a massive U-turn against many positions they have previously held.
National can’t be trusted with your Kiwisaver.
In the actual metric of “what’s in it for me” in election year, Kiwisaver is right up there because you can see your savings go up every year.
My own simple rule is: Kiwisaver is a Labour policy, was from the beginning, and I trust Labour to continue.
You can’t say that about any other party.
The National Party has had a fiddle with aspects every election.
They used the sustainability money.
They funnelled the equity money.
Now they have an infrastructure short fall and have their beady eyes on Kiwisaver.
They are full of lies, and half truths.
Trust is precious.
Ditch them 26. Let's begin better now.