Most New Zealanders want the age you can start collecting superannuation left where it is, at 65, even as the cost of the pension climbs and the retirement age creeps back onto the election agenda. A new RNZ-Reid Research poll found 58 percent of voters want eligibility kept at 65, while 35.3 percent think it should rise to 67 and 6.8 percent are unsure.
The poll was carried out online between 2 and 9 July 2026, with 1000 people surveyed and a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent. It landed in the middle of a debate that has been simmering all year, as the bill for New Zealand Superannuation keeps rising and the major parties circle a question none of them much wants to answer plainly before polling day.
The numbers matter because superannuation is one of the biggest single lines in the government’s books. The annual cost has climbed from under 20 billion dollars in 2023 and is forecast to pass 30 billion a year by 2030, according to reporting on the rising pension bill. The country now spends roughly 39 million dollars a day paying the pension to people aged 65 and over, and that daily figure is tipped to reach about 120 million dollars by 2040 as the population ages. The Super Fund was built for exactly this bill, when Michael Cullen began setting money aside in 2001 on the argument that the country could afford it then and would struggle later.
National has long held a policy of lifting the age of eligibility from 65 to 67, but not for a long time. Under the party’s stated plan the age would stay at 65 until 2044, then be raised gradually, giving people who are younger today a couple of decades of notice to plan around it. The party has argued that because people are living longer, the settings written when the pension was designed no longer match how long most retirements now last. Neither National nor ACT has released a detailed superannuation policy for this year’s election, though both have campaigned in the past to shift the age to 67.
That reticence shows up in the poll’s party breakdown. National’s own voters were almost evenly split on whether to raise the age, with 47.8 percent in favour and 48.2 percent against. Among ACT and Opportunity voters a majority backed a higher age. On the other side, support for lifting the age sat at around 33 percent among New Zealand First voters, 25 percent among Labour voters and 19 percent among Greens voters, while 44.6 percent of Te Pāti Māori voters were in favour. In short, there is no bloc of voters, not even the parties that have championed the change, where a clear majority wants the age pushed out.
The survey also tested a bigger idea, pairing a rise in the age to 67 with making KiwiSaver compulsory. That combined package was rejected, with 52 percent opposed and 37.6 percent in support. National, ACT and Opportunity voters were the most willing to back the trade, more than half of each saying yes, while Labour, Greens, New Zealand First and Te Pāti Māori voters were mostly against it.
Compulsory KiwiSaver on its own was a very different story. Taken by itself, making KiwiSaver compulsory drew 70.4 percent support against 20.2 percent opposed. That gap suggests voters are far more comfortable being told to save than being told to work two years longer before the pension kicks in, even though both are ways of easing the same long-term cost.
The Retirement Commission has come down firmly on the side of leaving the age alone. The commission has recommended keeping eligibility at 65 without means-testing, pointing out that about 40 percent of people over 65 rely almost entirely on the pension for their income. It has also warned that a higher age would fall hardest on people in physically demanding jobs and on groups with lower life expectancy, including Māori and Pasifika, who are less likely to reach 67 in good health or at all. For those workers, a later pension is not a longer holiday, it is fewer years of it.
Politically, the pressure has been building from the government’s own side of the House. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has raised the sustainability of superannuation as part of her Budget messaging, a signal read widely as a nudge to coalition partner New Zealand First to reconsider its long-standing refusal to touch the age. New Zealand First, led by Winston Peters, has spent years defending 65 as a hard line, and the poll gives that stance plenty of public cover.
None of this forces a decision before the election. What it does is sharpen the choice voters are being asked to make. The money going into the pension is real and rising, the ways of paying for it, a later age, compulsory saving, means-testing or simply higher taxes and borrowing, all carry a cost that lands on someone, and the parties are still deciding how much of that they are willing to say out loud before you cast a vote.
If you want to see where the parties actually stand on superannuation and the other issues shaping this election, you can compare their positions using the Newswire voting tool.
What do you think, should the pension age stay at 65 or move to 67, and would you accept compulsory KiwiSaver as part of the deal? Share your view 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 🙂
Leave a Reply