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November 22, 2025 13 mins

The National Party have announced their first election promise - a lift to default KiwiSaver contribution rates. 

The changes would mean that by the end of the implementation, savers would be able to contribute 12% to KiwiSaver, putting us on a level matching Australia's superannuation. 

Some experts say it'll lead to countless people opting out of KiwiSaver, with other investment methods providing more incentives.

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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks,
I'd be yes.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Indeed, So the National Party have announced their first election promise.
So yes, it's not a government announcement. This is a
National Party announcement and it's a lift to default key
we Saver contribution rates. It's quite a big one. The
changes would mean that by the end of implementation, savers
would be able expected able to contribute twelve percent to

(00:32):
key we Saver. That'll be six percent from employers and
six percent from employees, putting on a level which would
match Australia's superannuation, the country that has never far away
from our discussions around US superannuation contributions, some experts say
lead to countless people opting out of kei we Saver,
with other investment methods providing more incentives, or just whether

(00:55):
they can afford it anyway. Key we Saber provider cur
a Wealth's founder and managing director and regular guest on
our Smart Money show as well. Rupert Carlyon is with
me now, Giday, Rupert, how are you going?

Speaker 3 (01:05):
I'm very good? Get up to the everyone good A Do.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
You like it?

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Look? I love it? I mean it's a great start.
We know three plus three is nowhere near enough. Four
plus four not enough? Are six plus six? Hey, we're
getting into the ballpark right. Superannuation OECD average is about
fifteen percent, so anything is better than nothing. There's a
lot to like in here, though it's not everything.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Fifteen percent OECD average. Australia at twelve percent. That seems
to be the one we're always talking about. Is twelve
the magic number? Or do you think we've got further
to go?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, in Australia there is talk of wanting to go
to fourteen, but the problem is they don't think they
can afford it and they think there's an affordability issue.
So look, there probably is a little bit more to go.
Fifteen is probably the number where if you take away
state support, if you get rid of first homes and
actually make it, sorry, if you make it as it's August,

(02:01):
can we save it the whole way through? Fifteen is
probably close to the right number. But as I say,
twelve is a lot bit of the name you.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Meant, well, you've just touched on the next question really,
because so if Australia is questioning whether they want to
bump theirs up, because of affordability. Wages are higher in Australia.
You know, we see the headlines about people going there
because of the increase in wages that that experience. So
I guess the question is can we afford twelve here?
Where's money going to come from?

Speaker 3 (02:31):
A lot? Short answer is it's not going to be easy.
There will be a lot of people that are already
struggling do today on the paychecks, a lot of companies
that are struggling. But it's neven going to be easy.
And so whether it's today, whether it's some five years time,
whether it's some ten years time, would you have to
buy this bullet and do it at some point and
an ideal wealth What it would mean is that we

(02:52):
would also be accompany this with maybe means testing in
need super something we've talked about before. Maybe by means
testing it did super, we're could afford to kind of
give eive on a little bit of a tax break
or do something else. But that's what's happening in Australia.
There's actually been a whole series of incentive So people say, hey, yep,
it's hard, it is going to hit my back pocket,

(03:13):
but I can actually see it's going to make me
way better off in the long run. And that's probably
the second part that's missing out of this announcement that's
kind of going what's in it for every day key weis?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
What about employers then? Because we haven't seen exactly huge
wage rises, that's basically an extra tax on it. It's
an extra cost and employers can they afford it? Do
you reckon?

Speaker 3 (03:35):
They're going to struggle. But to be honest, they don't
have to pay it either. What they can do if
they're willing to enable to use a total remuneration contract,
which forty percent of employers already using, they can just
cut contract their way out of this. So I suspect
what this will do is it's going to push a
lot more employee employers to go, you know what, can

(03:55):
we say? This is now too expensive for me? So
I'm just going to turn this austral into the employees problem.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
How on? So how are they going to do that?
If the legislate for six percent contribution from employers, it
doesn't how are they going to get out of that?

Speaker 3 (04:11):
So there's a quirk that was brought in in two
thousand and nine, which is called total ammuneration and so
in your contract, if you say I need one hundred
thousand dollars, and if you've got this total immuneration flaws
in your contract, you can elect to whether you take
that as cash or whether you take that as cash
plus QI saber. So in the current world, if I say, hey,

(04:34):
I want my KEISAV and I want you to contribute,
they're going to pay me ninety seven thousand dollars and
three thousand dollars in cash. Tomorrow I change my mind
and say, you know what, I just want cash only.
I'll get one hundred thousand dollars in cash. So there's
this contractual mechanic which actually allows employers to kind of sweat,
send it out and choose, and let the employees choose

(04:55):
whether they're going to take cash or whether they're going
to take keV seven contributions.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
So the other side of it is, of course, you know,
people always want to pay rise We could, we could
easily for it's quite foreseeable that we can simply see
that people are going to have to forego pay risers
because the extra the extra burden on employers. I'll just say, well,
we've given you an extra three percent your key we
say it, don't expect to pay rise.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
And that's that's the very dangerous thing in the current
can climent, because not only people more people or less
employees going to give less pay rises, but actually as
people are contributing more, you potentially end up in the
world where actually incomes full because more money is pumped
in the Kiwi server. And it is pretty ugly in

(05:43):
terms of some of that stuff. But as I say, right,
there's always can be this scenario in this situation. If
we want to have people saving privately for their retirement savings,
we've got to bite the bullet.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
We've got to do it at sometime and not want
to heap on more negativity. But of course it's going
to be optional for employees to jump up to six
percent as well. Is this just going to be a
saving scheme for people who are well off?

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Look, there's always the risk there'll be a lot of
people that will just do it because they do it,
they get used to it in almost stay there by accident.
But there will be The research shows and we're seeing
this at a lot of our clients. Once they stop contributing,
so current climate very tough, they're gone in the first time,
I'll hold twelve month contribution holiday. They just keep going off,

(06:30):
and you are right, the people that are going to
be contributing the format are really going to be those
that it can afford it. It's an easy thing for
people to cut and life get a little bit harder.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
So if you were a member of the opposition party,
would and what way would you attack this? Would you mean?
They probably are open to attack on this and say, look,
it's going to be voluntary for employees, and employees are
just going to build it into their salary packages, so
you know the least of this.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, I think that that's right. I think what they're
doing is they're saying, hey, retirement, we're slowly making your problem,
but we're not actually giving you any intentives. We're not
actually giving you any help to get there. It's really
just almost I think all we can say is a
notche to Actually this is how much you should be contributing.

(07:19):
There's nothing in there to really go but by the way,
there's a whole lot of extra outside for you to do. So,
so it's a great announcement, probably slightly less substance to
the announcement than actually anything else.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
So where do you almost preempted a couple of questions
I was going to ask their.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
I mean, look, I.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Of course it's good to get past the headline, isn't it,
because if we could all do it then it'd be marvelous.
But the reality is, what percentage of people and employeers
are really going to be able to go?

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Right?

Speaker 2 (07:56):
You know, we're going to maintain wages at the status
quo and there's going to be an extra six percent
going into your key we save it. How many people
do you think will really get the benefit of the
sun it's better.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
I think there'll be a lot of people that will
get there accidentally because they won't even notice that. They
won't really see it happen. And so what we'll find
is that as people get pay rises, rather than getting
the two and a half or three cent payrise, it
will just be kind of one one and a half.
There will be a lot that get there accidentally, but
there are a lot that are going to op out.
And the piece for us right even at CODER, we've

(08:28):
already seen over the last couple of months since the
government contribution got cut from five hundred and forty dollars
or five hundred and twenty two hundred and sixty. We've
actually seen quite a few people that have just stopped
their voluntary contributions because they've gone, you know what, I
can't be bothered anymore. Incentives aren't there, There's no point
in doing it, And I do suspect we're going to
see a lot of that as this goes on, which

(08:51):
is why I keep using the word incentive. We really
need to give people some incentives to make them want
to have their money locked up until the age of
sixty five. Today can momently rational person is going to say,
you know what, I'm going to pack that cash. I
might favor it or I might spend it, but actually
there's no upside for me to locking it up.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
And I guess it's ideally. It's really a policy that
relies on a prosperous and more procesous economy, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
Oh it does. Yeah, it's definitely something that launching this
in the middle of a recession, that's a pretty brave
thing to do. But yeah, I mean it's as I say, though,
I'd much rather see it because who knows, we could
be ten years getting out of this mess, and it
just means our time a short fur gets bigger and
bigger every Yeah, we've got to do it at some point.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
I guess it contributes that conversation that you know people
have to It's just another sort of step towards us
to skip, you know, thinking about what we need for
our retirement. At least at least we can say that.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
For it, well we can. And look, it's a nice
conversation starter. It's a nice it's a good signaling. But
it is a very easy policy to urn ounce because
it doesn't cost the coument. Anything doesn't cost a huge amount.
So yeah, it is just a nice thing to get
us thinking.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Really, what are incentives? I mean, just for a final
it's almost like you've got my questions in front of me.
You've been jumping ahead on all my questions. But what
incentives do you think we should do? You know, we
do we need to introduce that incentive. Shall we have
other sort of tax break incentives for money you put
into key we saber or what would you do.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
That? We need incentives and so we can do There
are lots of different ways you can do it. Australia.
The model is that any money put it into a
supernation scheme. You actually only pay seventeen and a half
percent tax versus national text over there up forty five percent.
In the US. Any gain on investments tax free if
they're inside your retirement account. There they've got capital gains tax,

(10:46):
income taxes, a whole lot of other things. And in
the UK it's actually all pension contributions to tax free.
So most other countries in the world have given you
quite significant benefits. If you are it's a lockdown money out.
So I'm not too picky. I'd like to see something,
I guess.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
I guess the problem. I guess the problem is we're
not going to get a new Zerine government in the
next little while. Who wants to have a smaller tax
take given the things we've got to invest in.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
No, but it'd be nice to have a slightly holistic policy, right,
So I mean superannuation I talk about qui sailor that's
the gate at the top of the cloth. How do
we prepare people for a better retirement where a universal
superannuations and there's the imblance at the bottom of the
cloth where we're just paying out everything because we don't
think anyone can save. What would be nice is if

(11:37):
we say, hey, we've strengthened the gate at the top
of the closs. We're really helping people deliver better retirement savings.
Let's use some of that money, or sorry, let's use
that to stop paying everyone down the bottom of the cloth,
and that actually allows us to take some savings in
terms of government expenditure which might be reinvested back into
a program like this.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Hey lucky, last question, when, at what stage do you
think the fact that we are now through employers and
employees investing in our own pranuation, At what stage do
you really think that's going to have a sort of
critical point where we're actually in a much better shape
rather than we've got super and a few extra dollars
on top.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
You're probably a full cycle. So at the moment, the
average sixty five year old and qvsa's got a balance
of about sixty five thousand dollars, I think you go
a lot people that have been contributing ever since for
the last twenty years. That still a lot that we
would like. We've probably got another tea in twenty years
to run before we get closer to Australia where you've

(12:40):
got those average balances kind of being in the three
four hundred thousand dollars by the time people retire.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Just sorry, I did promise. Last question, what do we
know the average retirement balances in Australia these days? I
thought it was like a million or something.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
No, Hi, it's about I think it's got four or
five hundred thousand dollars. So it's still not where it
needs to be, but that's also a way you get
quite a lot of support from the government if you
still need it.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
There.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Hey, hey, thanks so much for your time. Great to
chat with you out there. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Great chat. Thank you very much, chers mate.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
That's Rupert, Carly and Courra Wealth founder and managing director.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talk zed Be weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
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