{"id":149011,"date":"2025-11-23T02:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T02:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/149011\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T02:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T02:52:08","slug":"national-pledges-to-boost-kiwisaver-contribution-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/149011\/","title":{"rendered":"National pledges to boost KiwiSaver contribution rate"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Giles Dexter of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

National is pledging to further increase the default KiwiSaver contribution rate if re-elected in the 2026 general election.<\/p>\n

The policy is the first firm one from the party ahead of the election, still about a year away.<\/p>\n

At this year’s Budget, the government\u00a0confirmed an increase\u00a0to the default contribution from 3% to 4% by 2028.<\/p>\n

In a speech to National Party members in Upper Hutt, leader Christopher Luxon said even after those changes, KiwiSaver contributions would still be lower than Australia’s equivalent scheme – and he wanted to aim higher.<\/p>\n

“For Kiwis working in New Zealand, that means smaller KiwiSaver balances and less financial security than friends or family working and saving in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne.”<\/p>\n

Luxon said if re-elected, National would continue to gradually increase the default contribution rates by 0.5% a year until 2032, when both employees and employers would pay in 6% each.<\/p>\n

That would mean a combined rate of 12% by\u00a02032, matching Australia.<\/p>\n

As the government is New Zealand’s biggest employer, it was estimated that the policy would cost around $90 million a year for each 0.5% increase.<\/p>\n

National said it expected that this would be met within agencies’ baselines, although some funding for cost pressures “could become available for certain agencies”.<\/p>\n

Unlike Australia, the scheme would not be compulsory.<\/p>\n

Also at the Budget, the government halved its annual contribution to a maximum of $260.72, and removed it for anyone earning more than $180,000 a year.<\/p>\n

In a statement this morning, Luxon said the move to boost KiwiSaver would ensure New Zealanders were “more financially secure in retirement”.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinancial security for retired people comes through\u00a0home ownership and supplementing New Zealand Superannuation with\u00a0long-term savings. KiwiSaver supports both of those, so National will strengthen it further.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a 21-year-old earning $65,000 a year today, these changes would mean they retire with a KiwiSaver balance of around $1.4 million, around $400,000 more than they would have with the Budget 2025 contribution settings,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a New Zealander who does the right thing by working hard and saving for the future, you deserve to get ahead.”<\/p>\n

Today’s speech was held to mark two years of the coalition, with the anniversary coming up on Thursday.<\/p>\n

– additional reporting Allied Media\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Giles Dexter of RNZ National is pledging to further increase the default KiwiSaver contribution rate if re-elected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-149011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}