Retirement System Reform | Simplicity New Zealand

Aotearoa New Zealand built its retirement system for a radically different demographic world. In 1965, there were seven working-age New Zealanders for every person over 65. Today there are around four; by 2065, Treasury projects there will be just two. By 2006, we were already entering a permanent structural demographic shift, with the fiscal pressures of an ageing population set to intensify over the decades ahead.

New Zealanders are now deep inside that transition, which is being financed predominantly through taxes on current workers, who at the same time are facing greater public-service rationing, intense economic pressure, and growing concentrations of wealth among those who already own housing and other assets. Many younger and lower-income New Zealanders are being systematically shut out of asset ownership and long-term economic security, with the costs falling most acutely on Māori and Pasifika communities.

We advocate for KiwiSaver 2.0 as part of the economic plumbing for a well common-world. We want universal child accounts, compulsory employer contributions, better inclusion of self-employed people, and far stronger support for those whose ability to build assets is interrupted by care, low incomes or hardship, alongside reforms that address wealth concentration at the top, including the taxation of housing gains and intergenerational transfers. We also want public policy settings that support some of the assets pooled through KiwiSaver into viable housing and infrastructure projects that build more economically inclusive futures.