KEY POINTS:
One of New Zealand's biggest companies says it is so fed up with frequent changes to KiwiSaver that it will not make any further promises to its staff about the scheme until it settles down.
Fletcher Building, which employs 8000 people in divisions ranging from Pacific Steel to
Firth Concrete, tried to be an "enlightened employer" by paying 2 per cent into its workers' KiwiSaver accounts from the day the scheme started in July last year, almost two years before it was required to by law.
But human resources executive Peter Merry said yesterday that he couldn't give employees any commitments about lifting the employer contribution above 2 per cent if a National government reduced the required employer payment from 2011 from 4 per cent to 2 per cent.
"The rules have changed so frequently in its short lifespan that right now our position is to obey the law for the time being until the whole KiwiSaver story has settled down.
"We have been bitten a couple of times by adopting a position and communicating it to the workforce, only to have to change the story.
"So I'm not in a position to give any indication as to what we would do if the law changed, other than to say that we pride ourselves on being an employer of choice."
Other employers who have agreed to pay more than the law requires did not wish to comment on National's policy yesterday.
Some, including Air New Zealand, ANZ Bank, the Stock Exchange and contracting group Fulton Hogan, are already paying 4 per cent for employees who are paying 4 per cent themselves.
Others, such as the supermarket group Progressive Enterprises and retailer Pumpkin Patch, have negotiated "2 plus 2" deals under a transitional clause in the KiwiSaver Act allowing employees to pay in 2 per cent until April 2010 if their employers match that.
But David Lowe of the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) said many employers who were trying to do well by their staff shared Mr Merry's frustration.
"You put a lot of time and effort into getting it right and then you have to go back and do it all again," he said. "At the moment we are getting changes almost every week."
The latest - before National's policy was announced last week - was a law change banning employers from giving pay rises to employees who stay out of KiwiSaver to match the benefits given to those who join it.
* National Party finance spokesman Bill English yesterday defended his party's policy of limiting taxpayer subsidies for employees in KiwiSaver to $20 a week or 2 per cent of their incomes, whichever is the lower.
Other KiwiSaver savers, such as the self-employed and parents at home, can get the full taxpayer subsidy of $20 a week, or $1040 a year, regardless of their income as long as they put in at least $1040 a year.
Herald finance writer Mary Holm points out that someone who had a part-time job for one month, earning a total of $200, could get a tax credit of 2 per cent of that, or $4, whereas if they didn't have the job they could get the full $1040 credit.
Mr English said the policy was fair, as employees also received matching contributions from their employers, but the self-employed and parents at home did not.
Even under Labour, the tax credit is not available to children under 18, who made up 13 per cent of the 812,018 people in KiwiSaver at the end of last month.
But the election outcome will affect the remaining 700,618 people in the scheme - 27 per cent of the total population aged 18 to 64.
