Winston Peters’ idea of making KiwiSaver compulsory is a no-brainer.

It’s not a new idea. But it’s a great idea. It’s also something the NZ First leader has been against before now. But what good is a mind if you can’t change it?

But I’m not totally on board with all aspects of his policy, which he says will be part of NZ First’s offering in next year’s election campaign.

I’m open to the contributions increasing. Starting at 8 percent of our pay and, eventually, reaching 10 percent. Which is going way further than the current coalition government, which is increasing minimum contributions from 3 percent to 4 percent.

But Winston, can you please drop this idea of giving us tax cuts so that we can afford to put more into our KiwiSaver?

I know why you’re doing it. Or why you’re saying it. Because the first thing people are going to ask when you tell them that as much as 10 percent of their pay is going to disappear and go straight into their KiwiSaver, is how they’re supposed to be able to afford it.

Instead of talking about tax cuts, we need to be told to work out how we’re going to do it.

Because, until politicians have the guts to say that sort of thing, the retirement savings black hole is only going to get bigger.
  
We’ve seen already how pointless tax cuts are. We get a few extra bucks in our pocket and the Government gets a whole lot less in its pocket.

Yet somehow, it’s still expected to pay out things like the NZ Super pension to anyone and everyone once they turn 65.

We can’t do that with the Government getting less revenue through tax.

The only way we could, would be to do something that I’ve been advocating for a while now - means testing people for the pension.

But we’re not going to get Winston Peters pushing for that, are we?

LISTEN ABOVE