\u201cThe largest part of it being that they will make KiwiSaver or an equivalent retirement scheme compulsory for all workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, that\u2019s quite a big shift for the National Party. They historically have rallied against these types of mandatory retirement schemes. But that was really the centrepiece of the policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say that KiwiSaver is becoming more and more popular. They want to reinforce that saving from a young age is really important, so it\u2019ll help people down the line, and there was a really strong reception to that amongst National Party members.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn top of that, they are proposing that there be automatic enrolment for babies at birth, and that would be supported by a $1500 contribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really interesting because New Zealand First actually has a similar policy, but they\u2019re only offering $1000, so National is clearly trying to one-up their coalition partners there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s also support for parents when they\u2019re off on parental leave. At the moment, there isn\u2019t necessarily any obligation for the parents to be getting KiwiSaver contributions if they aren\u2019t making contributions themselves. National\u2019s saying that they will pay contributions even if those parents aren\u2019t putting money into their own KiwiSavers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, finally, National would require employers to continue making contributions to people over the age of 65 who are working. At the moment, if you get to 65, there\u2019s no obligation on your employer to continue giving you a KiwiSaver contribution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Green Party co-leaders Chloe Swarbrick (left) and Marama Davidson make a tax policy announcement in Auckland. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Green Party\u2019s tax package includes a 2.5% tax on the net assets of the super-rich, above $10 million.<\/p>\n
It also sets a higher tax rate for large corporates, a levy on our four big banks, and a tax on tech companies\u2019 offshore profits. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no surprise they want to go after the super wealthy … What was interesting about this tax plan is that it does dramatically rein in the Greens\u2019 ambitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you go back to last year\u2019s plan, that was an $88 billion package of new revenue with many different types of new taxes. This one is still $32b, so it\u2019s still a lot of money, and it\u2019s still what the Greens stand for.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is a less ambitious package. That is partly down to some changes they\u2019ve made to their wealth tax proposal. Under the previous plan, the one they put out last year, they would tax net assets above $2m. They\u2019ve now changed that to net assets above $10m.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that is a signal from the Greens that they understand that ordinary people who might have a bit of wealth put aside, they might have an expensive home that\u2019s gone up in valuation, or they have some other assets that might be worth a bit of money, they don\u2019t want those people to get worried that the Greens are coming after them,\u201d Ensor said.<\/p>\n
Listen to the full episode<\/a> to hear more about:<\/p>\n National\u2019s KiwiSaver overhaulA softer Greens approachLuxon and pollingSenior MPs at risk.<\/p>\n The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime\/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.<\/p>\n You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the other hand, the Greens are focusing on taxing the rich, imposing a levy on the four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[806,138,10668,219,5903,15356,1668,23746,78,3242,12814,661,300,3556,111,139,69,3111,28630,10269,1551,223,32740,1961,1530],"class_list":["post-489472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-as","tag-business","tag-economic","tag-economy","tag-election","tag-emerged","tag-front","tag-greens","tag-in","tag-large","tag-looms","tag-major","tag-money","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-out","tag-page","tag-policies","tag-set","tag-the","tag-theme","tag-this","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489472","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=489472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}