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.
"National is proposing a massive U-turn against many positions they have previously held."
An undisputed fact, and yet barely mentioned in much of the reporting. This goldfish memory news coverage is a real disservice to the voters.
(insert famous Santayana quote here)
For comparison in Australia the legal minimum
employeeemployer contribution is 12%.Oz employees pay in nothing themselves.
The compulsory payment by employers regardless of employee contribution and the ban on total remuneration contracts are big improvements.
The no contribution option (hardship), or at 4% and no compulsory rise to 6% for employees when it rises for employers are others.
As was the ability to take money out to buy a house.
4 from Labour and one from National so far.
Cheers for the correction. The comparison is a bit sticky, and the Retirement Commission comparison here acknowledges that NZ Kiwisaver plays a different role than the Australian compulsory system that started in 1992:
https://retirement.govt.nz/news/latest-news/who-does-it-better-comparing-the-australian-and-new-zealand-retirement-income-systems
There are many issues with Kiwisaver.
The bottom line is- is what National is proposing a preliminary to ending National Super.
It was originally intended as an as-well-as, rather than an-instead-of, and as a way to promote saving.
And the parties respective positions on the self employed speak about that- as Labour leave out the self employed, they cannot mean to abolish Nat Super.
THEN there's the issue of a stock market crash and how well protected pension funds really are. I suspect I know the answer.
Essentially, Kiwisaver is rich people gambling with working people's money.
Oz has employer funded super, available from age 60 and means tested pension (income and asset test) available from age 67.
And the biggest long term issue for Kiwisaver is allowing withdrawals to purchase a first home or (increasingly frequent under the current government), allowing withdrawals on hardship grounds. the current government have deliberately increased hardship through lower wages and lower social welfare benefits; it may take some time for the new Labour-led government to fix all problems, but there may need to be an alternative for first home buyers – for example government backed second mortgages at a lower rate than bank loans for qualifying New Zealanders.
Stopping excessive profits from supermarkets may not be as urgent as stopping excess profits for the gentailers . . . We should have means tested NZ Superannuation designed to catch the very wealthy – say the wealthiest 10% of those over age 65 . . .
I don't suppose any media outlets will point out the irony of National's flip-flop on Kiwisaver.
National opposed Kiwisaver when it was introduced and has tried, until the last three years, to water it down in successive administrations.
Now the way they are talking you would think that it was National's idea all along.
They act similarly about the Cullen Fund.
And National like to try and persuade everyone that THEY are the great economic managers.
……rude noise like a raspberry……