National’s Nicola Willis says detailed arrangements for specific circumstances - like people who have a salary job but also make income from side hustles - would have to be worked through if party's re-elected

Questions remain over National's KiwiSaver policy promise for workers with side hustles, with the party's finance spokesperson Nicola Willis saying the details will be worked out if the party's re-elected in November's election. 

Willis said the expectation is that everyone who is working will have a KiwiSaver account they will be contributing to, including people who are self-employed and sole traders.

But asked if a salaried employee, who earns an additional sole trader income on the side, would have to contribute to their KiwiSaver from both income pools, Willis said the detailed arrangements for specific circumstances would have to be worked through if National's re-elected into the next government.

Her comments come as concerns have been raised over the practicalities of National’s recently-announced KiwiSaver policies, especially for self-employed people.

One of National’s proposals is to make KiwiSaver or an equivalent scheme, compulsory for workers. For the self-employed, National said in its KiwiSaver policy document: “Self-employed individuals would only be required to contribute the equivalent of the employee contribution. This means someone who is self-employed from 1 July 2028 will be required to contribute 4% of their income to their KiwiSaver (not the combined rate of 8%).”

But chief executive of digital accounting service Hnry, James Fuller, told interest.co.nz he thought the broad brush statement of sole traders having a 4% compulsory KiwiSaver contribution missed the nuance of the self-employed workforce.

There were sole traders who earned money as both a salaried employee and from self-employment, he said, and this raised questions about how they would contribute to KiwiSaver.

In the past, some of those people would have chosen not to contribute to KiwiSaver through their side hustle because they already had sufficient coverage from their salary job, he said.

"That lack of nuance, that lack of detail, is what's causing quite a bit of confusion, where people are a little unsure as to what this means."

'Not expecting people to have multiple KiwiSaver accounts and multiple contribution arrangements'

Asked on Wednesday if people with a fixed income as well as income from being a sole trader or self-employed, meant that a compulsory contribution would be across both incomes, Willis said: “We’ll expect them to make a contribution to a KiwiSaver scheme but not to make the employer contribution as well as the employee contribution.

“So they will need to make a contribution that’s relative to their wages or their income, and that will be half the rate of other savers … At 4%, they will just be making 4% and not getting the matching 4% from the employer.”

Asked if someone had a side hustle that made them $5000 would be expected to put 4% of that towards their KiwiSaver, Willis said the detailed arrangements for specific circumstances would have to be worked through if National's re-elected into the next government.

“But the expectation is that everyone who is working will have a KiwiSaver account that they will be contributing to, and that includes people who are self-employed and sole traders."

"We’re not expecting people to have multiple KiwiSaver accounts and multiple contribution arrangements," Willis said.

National’s revenue spokesperson Simon Watts, on Tuesday, said the party needed to work through the mechanics around that process.

“Self-employed individuals already do contribute to KiwiSaver, so it’s not a new phenomenon. We’re simply just referring to the fact that their contributions will be compulsory," Watts previously said.

National leader Christopher Luxon told reporters on Tuesday that the party’s expectation of self-employed people only contributing half of the combined rate was fair and reasonable.

Total remuneration packages

Another thing National wants to work through, following its KiwiSaver announcement, were the potential implications for employment agreements - like those with a total remuneration approach.

Total remuneration packages are when employers place their KiwiSaver contribution as part of a person’s salary. This means that employer and employee contributions are coming out of an employee's salary.

Speaking to reporters at a post-Cabinet press conference on Monday, Willis said: “We recognise that these are issues that we would need to work through in government, and we want to do that in a very consultative way, working with employers and employees.”