May 26, 2025 • 9 mins
Nicola Willis says National still hasn't decided on its superannuation policy ahead of next year's election.
The Finance Minister says keeping eligibility at 65 is increasingly expensive - and Prime Minister Luxon has expressed interest in making changes.
Willis says discussions will need to take place about the matter as a caucus.
"What that will look like will be different from the last election - because, obviously, 3 years have gone past since then. New Zealand, as we have pointed out in the past, is quite an outlier."
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And with us right now is Nikola Willis the Finance Minister,
High Nikeoler.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Good evening, Heather.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Now did you see that the police are not investigating
one off shoplifts of less than five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I've just been caught up with us. I've been on
our fight back from Nelson where I've been handing over
money to the new hospital, and I've just had a
very brief brief on it.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Okay, so this is what is happening, and it is
it's a bunch of other stuff as well. It's you know,
petrol theft of less than hundred and fifty dollars, online
scams of less than one thousand dollars. Reality is, obviously
there are just not enough police to investigate everything. Will
you put more money in so they can have more
cops so we can get this stuff investigated.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, we have put more money in here, and last
budget we put funding in for hundreds of extra police
and this budget we put in four hundred and twenty
million dollars extra so that the police we have have
greater resources with which to fight crime. So we are
committed to properly resourcing the police. Ultimately they will make
their own operational decisions about how best to deploy their resources.
(00:59):
It's not a good thing for politicians to be dictating
where and how they police. But I'm always worried about
retail crime, both because I'm sympathetic to small business owners
and also because that has been the site of a
lot of violent crime in recent years. So it's been
good to see violent crime in retail spaces coming down.
(01:20):
It's been good to see the police working with retail
and zed on other ways they can support shopkeepers and
the like to prevent this kind of crime. And I'd
expect there to continue to be police attention to these issues.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So do we just need to accept that this is
the reality. I mean, in a small country that's frankly broke,
there will be rationing. Right, we're rational other stuff, we're
rational healthcare, we have to ration police resources.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, I think it's more that we have to trust
that the police will come up with what are the
big things that are going to make a fundamental difference,
And some of that will be about how they're actually
working with shopkeepers on what sorts of prevention tools they
can have in place, whether that's cameras or other things
that have had some success. We've got to trust that
(02:03):
the police will follow up on those repeat offenders, who
often are the ones doing multiple times.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
How do you think this is going to go down
with the public, Because basically what you're saying is, listen,
if somebody knicks something worth less than five hundred bucks
and it's one off, you're just going to have to
suck it up. Retailer. That's a bit to swallow.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Well, my message to anyone who thinks they're going to
steal something in New Zealanders it's against the law. I'm
going to get Well, you could still get caught, and
if you are caught, you should be facing the law.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Right, Okay, what about I mean, jeez, you realize how
weak that sounds. A well st stricter is a parent
than that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, this is an operational matter for the police. I
don't know the full details of how they've come to
their decision making, what their decision making is based on.
I do accept that this is something that New Zealanders
will be very interested in. I imagine that it's something
that the Police Minister will be taking an interest in,
and that there'll be more detailed to be communicating about
on the coming back.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Do you know, because I mean, it seems to me
if we're not going to rely on the police for
all of the stuff, it is going to be up
to retailers to rely on themselves to some extent. Do
you know where you guys are at with the citizens
arrest law? How far away away from getting that?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I think that legislation is progressing and I would expect
that giving Paul Goldsmith is in charge of it, but
it'll be in law pretty quickly, okay.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
And then with the facial recognition technology, I saw that
you guys are looking at expanding what people are able
to do with that, retailers are able to do with that.
Do you know where that's at?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, that's something again that Paul Goldsmith is working on
the balance there is between privacy laws but also giving
police all of the tools that they need to fight
crime and giving retailers those tools. And when I talk
about what are the modern approaches, that's one of them, right,
because if it's much easier to identify who did the crime,
then it's much easier for the police to do a
(03:53):
process well and keep.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Them out right, just don't even get that store in
the first place. That's right now, listen, really, I mean,
why are you bothering with the superannuation thing, because you're
just going to get smacked down on this, aren't you
buy the public and Winston.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I'm not. I've made it very clear that we're not
planning any changes to superannuation this term. No.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But even if you take it to the election, it's
just going to prove incredibly unpopular, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But we haven't taken anything to the election. I've just
simply made two facts plain. The first is, on the
one hand, the cost of superannuation is growing significantly by
many billions of dollars in just the next few years.
And the other simple fact is that in order to
fund that over time, New Zealanders will have to face
some choices about what we want that to look like.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Are you walking away from it because Luxon said last
week you guys are taking it to the next election.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, he was very explicit that our position at the
last election, which was to gradually increase the age of eligibility,
which is quite a different thing from taking it away
from anyone. It's simply saying gradually looking at lifting the
age of eligibility. That that position at the last election
he continues to think was the right one.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
He said twenty yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well there you go. But that is quite different from
what you've been talking about on your show, which is
taking away universal superannuation, and that is the expectation that
every taxpayer in New Zealand has. No, no, no, no,
when they get to sixty five, they get super.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Well that's what he said. He said, you guys are
going to the next election twenty twenty six taking it
up to sixty seven.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yes, that's right, right, but that would still be a
universal enticement.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Would I didn't talk about me.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Just an older just at an older age.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, but you're not going to do that, are you, Nikola,
because I'm going to oppose you and everybody's going to
impose you.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
You mean on the age. Yes, well, actually, we'll have
a conversation as a caucus about what the parameters of
that will be and how campaign on it. Are you
on this, No, I'm just being clear with you that
what that will look like will be different from the
last election, because obviously three years have gone pass since then.
(06:01):
New Zealand, as we've pointed out in the past, is
quite an outlier when we compare ourselves to other countries
and our age of eligibility. New Zealanders are working for
a lot longer, they're living for a lot longer, and
that super bill is going up, up, up, And it
is my job to be a teller of plain truths.
And one of the plain truths is that that super
(06:21):
bill is going to rock it up so high that
inevitably a future government either has a look at the
settings or wax a lot more taxes on younger workings said.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Or there's another or, Or you can take away all
this middle class welfare that's going on at the moment,
like the third year free education for university, like all
his best start nonsense that happens working for families, which
is a disgrace, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You
can start taking welfare away from working age peoples before
you start taking welfare away from people who are welfare
(06:53):
away from people who are retired.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Well, I'm proud to stand on the budget that we've
just delivered, where we've done a lot more time getting
of the welfare supports that are there with Kiwi's DAVA,
including with Best at Well. I've been clear that in
our next budget we expect to continue to offer savings
that will allow us to prioritize investment into the things
New Zealanders really care about. Health services, education services, the police.
(07:17):
That's going to be an ongoing effort from us. But
the superannuation conversation, it's not a conversation for today. We
don't have a fully formed policy, but I think the
Prime Minister has been clear that this is an area
that we have some concerns about for the future.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
How do you feel about Saturday? You know what happens
on Saturday?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
A Saturday.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
You know what happens on Saturday. Don't pretend you haven't
already got this in your diary and you're like, lord,
here we come.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
No, no, no, what happens on Saturday?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Here?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Seriously, you've lost me. Truthfully, you've lost me.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
David Seymour becomes the death right.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Okay, okay, well you can imagine that it's not marked
with an enormous love heart or anything on my calendar.
Why not when he becomes because I don't, from my perspective,
will change here.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
That everything's going to change, Nicoler, No, it won't.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
He will continue to have the same ministerial responsibilities he
currently does. Whinston Peters will continue to be the Minister
for Foreign Affairs, Rail and Racing. Yes, And look, the
Deputy prime ministership doesn't come with its own special set
of responsibilities, except that when the Prime Minister is out
of the country, you have to be with It is
the acting PM, and you more every week.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I know you have to. I want to say to you,
stop stop pretending. But I know you have to pretend
because you have to work with the guy. But Winston
is so charming and lovely. And David is David, isn't he.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well, look, everyone has their own special kind of charm,
don't they hear that? And no one's charm is quite
the same as another person. This is and I work
successfully with David seem where I work successfully with Winston Peters,
and whichever one of them is called Deputy Prime Minister
from one day to the next. To be honest, it
won't alter the way I work with them in any
way shape or for.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
You are good, Nicola, Thank you, I appreciate it, Nicola
Willis Finance Minister. That's like when your child comes to
you and it's like, bummy, am I your favorite? And
you go every one of you has a special place
in my heart. And then one of them is being
a little at the moment, and you go the bottom
place in my heart at the moment, isn't it? For
more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news
(09:21):
talks it'd B from four pm weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
And with us right now is Nikola Willis the Finance Minister,
High Nikeoler.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Good evening, Heather.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Now did you see that the police are not investigating
one off shoplifts of less than five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I've just been caught up with us. I've been on
our fight back from Nelson where I've been handing over
money to the new hospital, and I've just had a
very brief brief on it.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Okay, so this is what is happening, and it is
it's a bunch of other stuff as well. It's you know,
petrol theft of less than hundred and fifty dollars, online
scams of less than one thousand dollars. Reality is, obviously
there are just not enough police to investigate everything. Will
you put more money in so they can have more
cops so we can get this stuff investigated.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, we have put more money in here, and last
budget we put funding in for hundreds of extra police
and this budget we put in four hundred and twenty
million dollars extra so that the police we have have
greater resources with which to fight crime. So we are
committed to properly resourcing the police. Ultimately they will make
their own operational decisions about how best to deploy their resources.
(00:59):
It's not a good thing for politicians to be dictating
where and how they police. But I'm always worried about
retail crime, both because I'm sympathetic to small business owners
and also because that has been the site of a
lot of violent crime in recent years. So it's been
good to see violent crime in retail spaces coming down.
(01:20):
It's been good to see the police working with retail
and zed on other ways they can support shopkeepers and
the like to prevent this kind of crime. And I'd
expect there to continue to be police attention to these issues.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So do we just need to accept that this is
the reality. I mean, in a small country that's frankly broke,
there will be rationing. Right, we're rational other stuff, we're
rational healthcare, we have to ration police resources.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, I think it's more that we have to trust
that the police will come up with what are the
big things that are going to make a fundamental difference,
And some of that will be about how they're actually
working with shopkeepers on what sorts of prevention tools they
can have in place, whether that's cameras or other things
that have had some success. We've got to trust that
(02:03):
the police will follow up on those repeat offenders, who
often are the ones doing multiple times.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
How do you think this is going to go down
with the public, Because basically what you're saying is, listen,
if somebody knicks something worth less than five hundred bucks
and it's one off, you're just going to have to
suck it up. Retailer. That's a bit to swallow.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Well, my message to anyone who thinks they're going to
steal something in New Zealanders it's against the law. I'm
going to get Well, you could still get caught, and
if you are caught, you should be facing the law.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Right, Okay, what about I mean, jeez, you realize how
weak that sounds. A well st stricter is a parent
than that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, this is an operational matter for the police. I
don't know the full details of how they've come to
their decision making, what their decision making is based on.
I do accept that this is something that New Zealanders
will be very interested in. I imagine that it's something
that the Police Minister will be taking an interest in,
and that there'll be more detailed to be communicating about
on the coming back.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Do you know, because I mean, it seems to me
if we're not going to rely on the police for
all of the stuff, it is going to be up
to retailers to rely on themselves to some extent. Do
you know where you guys are at with the citizens
arrest law? How far away away from getting that?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I think that legislation is progressing and I would expect
that giving Paul Goldsmith is in charge of it, but
it'll be in law pretty quickly, okay.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
And then with the facial recognition technology, I saw that
you guys are looking at expanding what people are able
to do with that, retailers are able to do with that.
Do you know where that's at?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, that's something again that Paul Goldsmith is working on
the balance there is between privacy laws but also giving
police all of the tools that they need to fight
crime and giving retailers those tools. And when I talk
about what are the modern approaches, that's one of them, right,
because if it's much easier to identify who did the crime,
then it's much easier for the police to do a
(03:53):
process well and keep.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Them out right, just don't even get that store in
the first place. That's right now, listen, really, I mean,
why are you bothering with the superannuation thing, because you're
just going to get smacked down on this, aren't you
buy the public and Winston.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I'm not. I've made it very clear that we're not
planning any changes to superannuation this term. No.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But even if you take it to the election, it's
just going to prove incredibly unpopular, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But we haven't taken anything to the election. I've just
simply made two facts plain. The first is, on the
one hand, the cost of superannuation is growing significantly by
many billions of dollars in just the next few years.
And the other simple fact is that in order to
fund that over time, New Zealanders will have to face
some choices about what we want that to look like.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Are you walking away from it because Luxon said last
week you guys are taking it to the next election.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, he was very explicit that our position at the
last election, which was to gradually increase the age of eligibility,
which is quite a different thing from taking it away
from anyone. It's simply saying gradually looking at lifting the
age of eligibility. That that position at the last election
he continues to think was the right one.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
He said twenty yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well there you go. But that is quite different from
what you've been talking about on your show, which is
taking away universal superannuation, and that is the expectation that
every taxpayer in New Zealand has. No, no, no, no,
when they get to sixty five, they get super.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Well that's what he said. He said, you guys are
going to the next election twenty twenty six taking it
up to sixty seven.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yes, that's right, right, but that would still be a
universal enticement.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Would I didn't talk about me.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Just an older just at an older age.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, but you're not going to do that, are you, Nikola,
because I'm going to oppose you and everybody's going to
impose you.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
You mean on the age. Yes, well, actually, we'll have
a conversation as a caucus about what the parameters of
that will be and how campaign on it. Are you
on this, No, I'm just being clear with you that
what that will look like will be different from the
last election, because obviously three years have gone pass since then.
(06:01):
New Zealand, as we've pointed out in the past, is
quite an outlier when we compare ourselves to other countries
and our age of eligibility. New Zealanders are working for
a lot longer, they're living for a lot longer, and
that super bill is going up, up, up, And it
is my job to be a teller of plain truths.
And one of the plain truths is that that super
(06:21):
bill is going to rock it up so high that
inevitably a future government either has a look at the
settings or wax a lot more taxes on younger workings said.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Or there's another or, Or you can take away all
this middle class welfare that's going on at the moment,
like the third year free education for university, like all
his best start nonsense that happens working for families, which
is a disgrace, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You
can start taking welfare away from working age peoples before
you start taking welfare away from people who are welfare
(06:53):
away from people who are retired.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Well, I'm proud to stand on the budget that we've
just delivered, where we've done a lot more time getting
of the welfare supports that are there with Kiwi's DAVA,
including with Best at Well. I've been clear that in
our next budget we expect to continue to offer savings
that will allow us to prioritize investment into the things
New Zealanders really care about. Health services, education services, the police.
(07:17):
That's going to be an ongoing effort from us. But
the superannuation conversation, it's not a conversation for today. We
don't have a fully formed policy, but I think the
Prime Minister has been clear that this is an area
that we have some concerns about for the future.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
How do you feel about Saturday? You know what happens
on Saturday?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
A Saturday.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
You know what happens on Saturday. Don't pretend you haven't
already got this in your diary and you're like, lord,
here we come.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
No, no, no, what happens on Saturday?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Here?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Seriously, you've lost me. Truthfully, you've lost me.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
David Seymour becomes the death right.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Okay, okay, well you can imagine that it's not marked
with an enormous love heart or anything on my calendar.
Why not when he becomes because I don't, from my perspective,
will change here.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
That everything's going to change, Nicoler, No, it won't.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
He will continue to have the same ministerial responsibilities he
currently does. Whinston Peters will continue to be the Minister
for Foreign Affairs, Rail and Racing. Yes, And look, the
Deputy prime ministership doesn't come with its own special set
of responsibilities, except that when the Prime Minister is out
of the country, you have to be with It is
the acting PM, and you more every week.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I know you have to. I want to say to you,
stop stop pretending. But I know you have to pretend
because you have to work with the guy. But Winston
is so charming and lovely. And David is David, isn't he.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well, look, everyone has their own special kind of charm,
don't they hear that? And no one's charm is quite
the same as another person. This is and I work
successfully with David seem where I work successfully with Winston Peters,
and whichever one of them is called Deputy Prime Minister
from one day to the next. To be honest, it
won't alter the way I work with them in any
way shape or for.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
You are good, Nicola, Thank you, I appreciate it, Nicola
Willis Finance Minister. That's like when your child comes to
you and it's like, bummy, am I your favorite? And
you go every one of you has a special place
in my heart. And then one of them is being
a little at the moment, and you go the bottom
place in my heart at the moment, isn't it? For
more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news
(09:21):
talks it'd B from four pm weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
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