Election campaigns run on promises, and promises are easy to announce and hard to price. With the vote set for 7 November, the parties have started rolling out big ideas about New Zealanders’ money. Most coverage tells you the promise exists. Far less of it tells you what the promise would cost.
So we put real numbers on three of them, using the actual company accounts, the government’s own figures and Stats NZ data. We chose the promises that involve the largest new spending or asset purchases and come with enough public detail to cost. That is why two are NZ First’s and one is National’s. Labour’s main economic pitch so far, a levy on overseas streaming companies, has not been spelled out in enough detail to put a number on, and we will cost it and others as the detail arrives.
| Promise | Party | Their figure | Independent estimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy back BNZ | NZ First | “above $7.5b” | tens of billions, one-off |
| KiwiSaver to 12% | National | not stated | about $360m a year, Crown |
| $1,000 at birth | NZ First | not stated | about $58m a year |
What buying back BNZ would cost
NZ First wants the Crown to buy BNZ back from its Australian parent, National Australia Bank, and merge it with Kiwibank to create a state-owned National Bank of New Zealand. Winston Peters has said it could be bought for “something above $7.5 billion” and called estimates of $10 billion to $20 billion inflated. National’s Chris Bishop puts the real figure at $24 billion to $30 billion.
The one fact everyone agrees on is what BNZ earns. It made a statutory net profit of $1.49 billion in the year to September 2025. That is the anchor for valuing it, because a buyer is really buying a stream of future earnings.
Apply the kind of multiple banks normally trade on and the numbers climb quickly. The commentator David Chaston put a rough 20 times earnings on BNZ’s profit, which lands around $30 billion before any premium, and closer to $36 billion with one. Use a more conservative 10 to 15 times, and you still get $15 billion to $22 billion. Every standard method lands well into the tens of billions, which is to say well above the $7.5 billion figure, and in fact above BNZ’s own net assets.
Two caveats matter here. No sale is on the table, and NAB is not a forced seller, so a willing-seller premium is an assumption rather than a fact. And bank valuations swing with interest rates and growth, so any single multiple is illustrative, not a quote. The honest summary is that the independent estimates cluster in the tens of billions, the exact price is unknowable without a deal, and the gap with the campaign figure is the part worth watching.
One more point often gets lost. Peters proposes a “blended funding stack” of sovereign bonds, Crown debt and money from the NZ Future Fund and ACC. That changes who fronts the cash and over what timeframe. It does not change the price. We covered the full proposal in our report on the BNZ buy-back and Kiwibank merger plan.
What lifting KiwiSaver to 12 percent would cost
National’s policy is to lift the default KiwiSaver rate to 6 percent from the employee and 6 percent from the employer, a combined 12 percent, by 2032. It would be phased in at half a percentage point a year from 2029. Under existing law the default is already rising, to 3.5 percent in April 2026 and 4 percent in April 2028.
The government has put a figure on its own exposure. As the country’s largest employer, it says each half-point rise costs it about $90 million a year. Going from the 4 percent default to 6 percent on the employer side is four of those steps, so by 2032 the Crown would be paying roughly $360 million a year more into its own staff’s accounts.
That $360 million is only the government’s payroll. Every other employer in the country faces the same proportional rise on their own wage bill, which is a far larger sum in total but a cost to private businesses, not the Crown. For a worker on $70,000, lifting the employer rate from 4 to 6 percent puts about $1,400 more a year into their retirement account, with the employee matching it from their own pay.
That is the trade at the heart of the policy. It is forced saving, which builds bigger nest eggs over time but takes a bite out of take-home pay and payrolls now. If you want to see how the higher rate compounds over a working life, our guide to growing your KiwiSaver lets you model it.
What a $1,000 KiwiSaver start for every baby would cost
NZ First’s second money promise is smaller and simpler. It would have the Crown pay a one-off $1,000 into a KiwiSaver account for every New Zealand baby, to give every child a head start that compounds for decades.
This one is easy to cost because the driver is the birth rate. Stats NZ recorded 57,705 live births in the year to December 2025. At $1,000 each, that is about $58 million a year. The arithmetic is simply 57,705 multiplied by $1,000, a gross transfer before administration costs and assuming every newborn qualifies.
57,705 births a year at $1,000 each is about $58 million, roughly the cost of a few kilometres of new motorway.
By government standards that is modest, roughly the cost of a few kilometres of new motorway each year. Two things to note. If the scheme were extended to children already born rather than only newborns, the first-year bill would be far higher. And the annual cost slowly shrinks as the birth rate falls, a trend you can follow in our interactive look at New Zealand births since 1962.
How we costed these promises
None of these figures are forecasts of what a government would actually spend. They are estimates built from the best public data, and each rests on stated assumptions.
- BNZ: valued from its $1.49 billion annual profit using standard bank earnings multiples. Range reflects different multiples and premiums. No sale is on the table and NAB’s willingness is unknown.
- KiwiSaver to 12 percent: the Crown cost uses the government’s own figure of about $90 million per half-point step, measured against the 4 percent default already legislated for 2028. The wider employer cost is separate and falls on private business.
- $1,000 at birth: Stats NZ annual births multiplied by $1,000, gross of administration and assuming universal take-up.
The wider lesson holds for any campaign promise. A “funding stack” tells you who pays and when, not what something costs. A one-off purchase is not the same as an ongoing yearly bill. And a number attached to the government’s own payroll is rarely the whole cost to the economy. Ask which of those you are being shown.
Where the parties stand
Costing a promise is not the same as judging it. A cost is only one side of the ledger, and voters will weigh these against the benefits each party claims. What the numbers do is let you ask sharper questions before 7 November.
If you want to compare where every party stands on the economy, tax and your money, the Newswire voting tool lines the policies up side by side.
Quick answers
How much would it cost to buy back BNZ?
NZ First says above $7.5 billion. Standard bank valuation methods, based on BNZ’s $1.49 billion annual profit, put it well into the tens of billions, with independent estimates ranging from about $15 billion to $36 billion. It is a one-off purchase, not a yearly cost.
How much would KiwiSaver at 12 percent cost?
For the government as an employer, about $360 million a year by 2032, on top of the rise to a 4 percent default already legislated for 2028. Every other employer faces the same proportional rise on their wage bill.
Who would pay for buying back BNZ?
NZ First proposes a blended funding stack of sovereign bonds, Crown debt and money from the NZ Future Fund and ACC, rather than the operating budget. That spreads who pays and over what period, but it does not lower the purchase price.
Primary sources for this article: BNZ’s 2025 full-year result, National’s KiwiSaver policy, NZ First’s KiwiSaver and BNZ policy, and Stats NZ births data. The BNZ earnings-multiple valuation draws on analysis by interest.co.nz.
Which of these promises do you think is worth the cost? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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