National Party caught out on Kiwisaver

KiwiSaver safe after Nat gaffe
Hundreds of thousand of New Zealanders who belong to the KiwiSaver scheme can now be assured its safe - no matter who wins the election. KiwiSaver has exceeded expectation with around 630,000 workers signed up to it, and one of the scheme's drawcards is the employers' compulsory contribution. Now National has been flushed out and forced to say they will keep the compulsory employer contributions to the scheme. "We haven't finalised our KiwiSaver programme yet but there will be compulsory employer contributions," says National leader John Key. But the circumstances of National's announcement bordered on the bizzare. It all started during a forum on industrial relations at Wellington's Backbencher Pub on Tuesday morning, when backbench MP Kate Wilkinson said her party was opposed to employers having to make compulsory contributions to the retirement scheme. Until now National had consistently refused to state its position on the scheme, and the mistake has forced the party to come clean on a $2.5 billion policy.

National – the new party of ‘moderation’ – OR IS IT? My suggestion is that this moderate stuff is election wrap and once in we will see a radical right wing agenda adopted under the mantle of mandate, and the reason National are not releasing policy is because they know the wider electorate outside of their Business echo chambers wouldn’t put up with right wing economic policy adopted as social policy, and here we have a prime example of this. Kate Wilkinson tells an industrial relations forum that National will stop the employer component of Kiwisaver, John Key rushes around saying she’s wrong and that they haven’t finalized their policy. With National reluctant to tell NZers what they will actually do, when will they be upfront with their policies? Will National release all their polciy after the election?