On the face of it, the National Party’s proposal to lift KiwiSaver contributions to 12% over the next six years sounds reasonable.

There’s broad agreement that contributions are too low, and even the planned increase to 4% in 2028 won’t get most people close to the widely cited “70% of retirement income” benchmark.

So yes, employee and employer contributions do need to rise. And the argument that lifting contributions to 12% will align New Zealand with Australia makes good sense, too.

But the timing could not be worse. Nearly 26% of New Zealanders say they’re struggling to get by financially. Higher living costs, inflation outpacing incomes and muted wage growth (to put it charitably) have left households stretched.

Asking people to find extra money to lock away in KiwiSaver right now risks pushing them in the opposite direction – deciding KiwiSaver is optional, not essential.

And this is happening at a time when disengagement is already a problem. In 2025, we saw the first ever drop in the number of active KiwiSaver contributors. A full 40.6% of members aren’t contributing.

Even excluding the 400,000 members aged 65 or over, we’re still left with just........

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