At the moment, people who have lived in the country for 20 years, or have only been here for five years after turning 50, are eligible for “full” super payments.
Peters said that means people can be in New Zealand for a year out of every three after turning 50, and they could get the same amount as someone who has “worked their entire life paying taxes since they were 15 years old”.
“How is that fair?”
Winston Peters. Photograph / Mark Mitchell
The superannuation scheme was designed to look after seniors in their retirement, he said: Kiwis who worked two, sometimes three jobs for 50 years and sometimes through the “highest tax periods in our country’s history”.
“They deserve to be looked after in their retirement.”
Instead, Peters said, the “tax burden” now fell on paying for the “full retirement” of someone who migrated here and lived and paid taxes for “half of the time” compared with those who had worked their whole lives.
In the last 20 years, New Zealand has had a total net migration of around 650,000 people, at an average of more than 30,000 each year.
Peters said migrants brought a “percentage tax burden” for superannuation, which he described as a “ticking time bomb”.
The annual superannuation bill for older migrants has hit a billion dollars.
In December 2025, the Crown paid $2 million a week to over 42,000 superannuitants who became New Zealand residents aged 50 or older.
That sum has more than doubled in the past 10 years, from just $500m in 2015 to over $1 billion last year.
New Zealand First wants to put some meaning and value “back into being a New Zealand citizen”.
The policy means only New Zealand citizens would be eligible for superannuation payments, with a three-year grace period before it takes effect.
“If you want to get NZ Super then you need to sign up, be proud enough of New Zealand and show full commitment to our country and become a citizen,” he said.
“Our taxpayers should no longer continue to be used as a bottomless pit by some migrants to our country.”