Chris Hipkins stood in a Sharesies office on Sunday and called KiwiSaver one of Labour’s “proudest legacies”.
“We created it and now we’re going to make it work better for people.” Michael Cullen built it. National voted against it. Then Labour waited for National to write the homework, copied the employer half, softened the worker half and skipped the government contribution they spent a year crying about.
Labour’s election proposal:
Key findings
- 🧾 Employer KiwiSaver becomes compulsory from 1 July 2028 and lifts to six per cent by 2032, even when the worker reduces or pauses their own contributions.
- 👷 Employee default drops to four per cent. Minimum contribution rate gone. Labour calls that “flexibility” when money is tight.
- 📑 Ban new total-remuneration contracts that bury the employer contribution inside the salary.
- 👵 Over-65s keep the employer contribution. Paid parental leave keeps it, too, (from 2028/29, a year later than National). Self-employed: “explore”.
- 🗣️ Barbara Edmonds: National wants to “force” workers to put more in. Labour will force employers at the same six per cent and give workers a pause button.
- 💸 Herald receipt: Hipkins bagged National for cutting the annual government KiwiSaver contribution. Labour’s own document says Kiwis can’t trust National over that cut. The policy does not restore it.
- 📉 Hipkins’ own numbers: 83,400 on a savings suspension. More than a million working-age members not contributing.
- 📌 Sam Stubbs: National ankle-tapped Labour into a thinner policy. No baby accounts. Compulsion good. The amount still not enough.
Labour is selling authorship. Cullen invented the scheme. National voted no. Therefore trust Chippy with your retirement. The Sunday drop is not a Cullen sequel. It is National’s June package with the hard bits stripped. National would compel workers and employers, push both defaults to six per cent by 2032 for a 12 per cent match with Australia, auto-enrol babies with a $1500 kickstart and start parental-leave contributions from July 2027. NZ First was already out with birth enrolment and employee compulsion. Labour arrived third and called it a “proudest legacy”.
What they will do is lean on the boss. From 1 July 2028 the employer must pay, and keep paying if the staffer cuts their own rate or hits pause. By 2032 that employer floor is six per cent, phased 0.5 per cent a year. New total-remuneration contracts that swallow the contribution into pay get banned. Workers over 65 stay in. Parents on paid parental leave stay in. The self-employed get a working group dressed as “explore”. Edmonds says the ESCT extra helps fund parental leave and the Crown’s own bill as an employer. Phased in. Certainty. Budget process. The usual fog.
What they will not do is put the worker on the same hook. Default four per cent. No minimum. Life happens, Edmonds says. Kids, bills, money from nowhere. So the flexibility sits with the employee and the compulsion sits with the firm. She attacks National for forcing workers, then requires employers “at the same amount as National is proposing”. Force the boss. Soften the worker. Call it fairness.
Then the bit they cried about. Last year Hipkins tore into National for cutting the annual government KiwiSaver contribution. Today’s policy document still uses that cut as proof Kiwis cannot trust National. Jamie Ensor checked the paper. No restore. Not back to the old amount. Not even a date. They kept the smear and dropped the fix. Proudest legacy. Selective memory.
Stubbs, who actually runs a KiwiSaver provider, said the quiet part. National ankle-tapped Labour into producing a policy. He wanted Labour’s invention plus more. He got less. No accounts at birth. No redirect of the member tax credit to kids. Compulsion and the total-remuneration ban are fine. The savings target is not. “The amount that they want Kiwis to save for their future is not going to be nearly enough.” Labour invented the scheme and then let National set the ambition.
Hipkins pointed at 83,400 people on savings suspension and a million working-age members contributing nothing and blamed National for bills so tight nobody can save. His answer is to lock the employer in and leave the worker an exit. That is a payroll tax with a flexibility slogan, announced in a fintech office so it photographs like a future. National is the foil here, not the hero. They wrote the homework. Labour copied the employer line, ducked the worker line and refused to put back the government dollar they campaigned on.
They invented the scheme, waited for National's homework, forced the employer, softened the worker and skipped the bit they cried about. Proudest legacy. Selective memory.
Sources: RNZ, Labour to make employer KiwiSaver contributions compulsory, 13 Sep 2026; NZ Herald, Labour KiwiSaver vs National, 13 Sep 2026.
