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3:52 pm, June 24th, 2026 - 21 comments
Categories: john key, kiwisaver, national, nz first, same old national, superannuation, tax -
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I was more than a bit surprised at National’s Kiwisaver announcement on the weekend which was not too bad.
After all National has historically thought that Kiwisaver was a very bad thing and has sought to undermine it every chance they can. For them to want to bolster Kiwisaver was a welcome change.
About their previous approach who can forget when John Key called Kiwisaver a glorified Christmas Club. Or when National halved the state contributions to Kiwisaver accounts from $1,040 to $520 per year even though in 2008 they promised not to? Or when National removed the $1,000 kickstart contribution and John Key said it would not make a blind bit of difference to the numbers joining even though it did?
Even last year’s changes, which National trumpeted, reduced the Government’s contributions to Kiwisaver accounts by reducing further the Government contribution and by capping eligibility at those earning less than $180,000 per annum.
The savings to the Crown, according to this Cabinet Paper, which strangely is no longer on the Budget website, was $610.6 million a year.
Someone should ask why the Cabinet Paper was withdrawn from the Treasury website.
Kiwisaver may have been improved but it was going to be paid for by workers themselves and their employers.
Which makes you wonder why National would propose a radical change a couple of weeks after the Budget has been released.
The proposal is on the face of it a good one. It will cost, $110 million a year in its first year, or just over sixth of the savings from the previous changes.
National also clearly plaigarised the policy from New Zealand First’s policy released earlier in the year.
Given National’s increasing concern about how New Zealand First is eating into its lunch in terms of political support perhaps we will see. more of this sort of plaigarism occurring.
And the latest 1News Verian poll result confirms that National is clearly stuck in the 20s and is facing being thrown out of office.
I suspect that National’s Kiwisaver announcement was the result of some quiet panic in its ranks and an attempt to present a more future looking and gental persona. It will no doubt from now focus on announcements that make it look less mean spirited and which will shore up its ebbing of support to New Zealand First even if it has to do things that historically it would never have dreampt of doing.
How this develops will be interesting. Expect the sniping between National and New Zealand First to increase. And wonder at how they could ever again go into coalition. Unless that is they are both happy to sacrifice all of their principles in the pursuit of raw power.
Hello Micky. What principles would they be sacrificing? None!! What they have is self interest dressed up as principles.
For Luxon to accuse another aspiring Party of wanting to make all New Zealanders beneficiaries just beats all.
His Party in CoC sacked so many Public Servants and have wrecked our employment base. He would know all about turning us into beneficiaries,
Typical deflection and scaremongering by him.
I would tell him "You are toast because we know you now!!"
Self interest dressed up as principles is dead right.
My local National presence here has ambitions to be an MP and has been pulling out all the stops/grovelling to get the electorate nomination this election, even taking on the role of electorate chair. It didn't happen and lo and behold, she has just been announced as Acts candidate for West Coast Tasman.
Some elastic principles right there!
Politicians are beneficiaries! They don't have to face proper human resources grilling and float along like fluffy ducks these days. I don't consider they are working effectively for their roles and their pay and perks, to fulfill expectations from us.
There was a throwaway line in this morning’s Politiks newsletter to the effect of the Nats giving Simon Bridges a safe seat. Via The Taxpayers Union.
”ONE NEWS POLL SPARKS EXTRAORDINARY RUMOURS.
A One News Verian poll last night, which showed the centre-left parties with 64 seats and the centre-right with 60, sparked an extraordinary tweet by Taxpayers' Union CEO Jordan Williams.
The tweet: “Things are getting serious for the Nats after tonight's poll. Rumours again within party highrarchy (sic) re Bridges being parachuted into a safe seat. Heck.”
https://www.politik.co.nz/category/politics/
There's a feast for Lux-meme spotters here: https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/06/22/a-coalition-house-divided-cannot-stand-each-other/
Seems like his minder has instructed him to use the word risk in every sentence to make listeners paranoid. To get them to realise that the threat can come from anywhere, he encodes it as `any party', and as the Newsroom editor informed us, any gets emphasis each time he spits it out. The guts is that he runs a strong stable govt with hopelessly unreliable partners but must not admit that specifically, lest sheeple eye the gate.
They're only giving people their own money..
Either wages or jobs get cut, or prices go up.
And it is part of their design to have a move to people ultimately affording their own retirement (and in the short term limit access to National Super via a rising age and universal rate at a lower level via CPI rate increases as per Shipley 1998).
I've said all along that National will replace Luxon before the election, and though that may well prove to be wrong there is still time for them to make the change.
But it won't help them anything like as much as it would have if he'd stepped down for a smooth takeover months ago.
The opposition should be grateful that the campaign chair is no longer Chris Bishop. Just like Luxon, Simeon Brown has the comfort of a safe seat, which distorts a politician's perspective. He knows that he survives even if National lose power. Bishop has a better grasp of reality because his own electorate is at risk.
Is that a practice nazi salute from Luxury? Meaningless gestures from him, it's a lie – his real feelings towards us would be shown by his giving us 'the finger.'
Another indication of panic is the photo on the masthead to this article.
If you zoom in larger, you can see that what looks like a navy blue suit is actually a navy blue suit jacket and charcoal-black trousers. A dress code disaster. He might as well have worn a leopard skin shirt with it.
Surely, no-one of global CEO material would make such a crass mistake!
The only other reasons I can think of is either his wife was away and not there to dress him, or he sharted the suit trousers and had to borrow a pair. Imho, of course…
Surely the $1500 subsidy from birth will be greatly diminished for at least the first 16-18 years (until they are in employment and contributing) due to administration fees to fund manages despite it being interest bearing. Some parents may contribute to their kids accounts but I suggest most wont or may not be able to
Yeah I agree there will be a bit of erosion.
But to me the strength of contributions from birth is in family financial education.
From as soon as they can talk and understand numbers, young people will be vastly more financially literate and be more consequential about their financial decisions. That is huge compared to now.
And for the whole family, they are now talking about savings as a common commitment to their future. This is surprisingly rare these days … usually families only consider their common interest when it comes time to read the will.
Remember that old phrase 'cradle to the grave'? But this time it's not the patrician hand of the state; it's families and people thinking the same, as we all should.
There are exceptions, parents who allow their children to save (free rent) and parents who gift children home purchase equity (Key 2013 removal of gift duty tax).
I would imagine the $1500 start-up would be in a growth fund.
The intent is that the amount be significantly higher by the time they are 18.
I believe that there are plenty of Kiwisaver options, which have only a low percentage management fee. If your fund isn't making enough to cover 0.25% management fee – then you're in the wrong fund.
https://www.moneyhub.co.nz/best-kiwisaver-funds.html
Certainly the original $1,000 kickstart – which was offered when Kiwisaver first started – had substantially increased in value by the time my child started his own contributions.
Replacing State taxes with private ones, doesn't have a good history in most Western countries.
We only have to look at our power bills.
National at every point for the last 50 years has done everything it can to fuck with New Zealand's retirement savings.
National's Muldoon killed a proper contributing system. This was the worst economic decision a single New Zealand politician has ever made to us. Apart from Dancing Cossacks, which has led to the miserable NZSuper that we have …
… Let's not forget that National voted against the NZSuperFund. Those who stood by Labour for that were Alliance, NZFirst, and Peter Dunne. It now manages $75 billion on our behalf. No thanks to National who stopped contributions, multiple times.
National's Jim Bolger also instigated the referendum framed to go against compulsory retirement savings, in 1997.
National voted against Kiwisaver in 2006. It was Labour that led it. National's Key begrudgingly kept it going when it got in again in late 2008.
This current National-led government has sought to draw down from the NZSuperFund faster than was needed, because that's the kind of short-term thinkers they are.
And then there was all the chipping away they have done this term.
What National have retained of course (of course!) is the extremely generous superannuation scheme for MPs. For every $1 an MP puts in, the taxpayer puts in $2.50. Maximum contributors get up to $36,000 into their scheme per year. Why the fuck their super is not the same as every other citizen beggars belief.
We must not trust a single word that comes out of National's mouths on superannuation. They are liars who have done everything they can for 5 decades to wreck our retirement futures.
To super-rich predators, New Zealand Aotearoa and its population are just cash cows.
https://vote.nz/
Holding no torch for National over their track record on Super.
But all parties in Parliament (or at least any who have been in government over the last two decades) hold the same level of responsibility for the gold-plated parliamentary super scheme. I would not hold my breath for this to change, if a left coalition forms a government later this year.
I absolutely agree that it should be on exactly the same terms as Kiwisaver.
Exactly.
please do a post on this.