The Jerusalem Post reports:

A flydubai commercial passenger aircraft flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv diverted to and landed in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday morning after what Israeli officials said was an attempted hijacking by one of the pilots that led to a mid-air altercation.

An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post a “major disaster was narrowly avoided” amid growing fears that one of the pilots attempted to hijack the plane with the intention of crashing it into the ground. Additional flight crew, aided by Israelis on board the flight, managed to subdue the pilot and bring him under control, the official told the Post.

One pilot stabbed the co-pilot and tried to crash the plane. Cpt. Smit Machchhar is the FlyDubai pilot who was stabbed by his co-pilot. He fought back and reportedly managed to open the cockpit door after he was stabbed, allowing passengers to enter and subdue the co-pilot.

If correct, the co-pilot and the passengers saves the lives of everyone on board. When so many people would panic, they acted.

Every year that I process the LEAVERS data for every high school in NZ, I learn a great deal. I enjoy finding remarkable results and engaging with people making those happen.

The Equity Index Number (EQI) is the main mechanism the government uses to address genuine equity issues for students. It takes into account 37 soco-economic indicators. The schools with many students who have risk factors recieve a relatively small amount of extra funding to try and address those issues. The range is from 344 to 569 – with the highed number meaning that they have a high percentage of children with multiple risk factors.

We often associate achievement with EQI … the correlation is strong and I have no doubt that more should be provided for students in high EQI schools. 

The following is a list of 15 schools punching above their EQI.  
   

Up to Kiwiblog readers to see if they can note any patterns.

More details below on the full data set.


Data Process on the LEAVERS of every NZ High School – and aggregates.

Uses: 
– Info for Reporting to BoT, Staff, Parents & Community.
– Info for Goal setting and planning.
– Improved understanding of the NZ High-School system.
– Improved PD contact between schools.

Seventeen sheets:
1. Base data by #
2. Base data by EQI
3. Listed by Size
4. Listed by L2 NCEA for leavers 2022 – 2025
5. Listed by L3 NCEA for leavers 2020 – 2025
6. Listed by UE for leavers 2018 – 2025
7. Listed by L3 NCEA to UE for leavers gap – 2028 – 2025
8. Listed by student retention until 17yo 2018 – 2025
9. Listed by Progression to L7+ degree study 2019 – 2024
10. Listed by UE results in EQI 10ths – 2021 – 2025
11. Listed by UE results with EQI coded – 2021 – 2025 (highlighted those doing well from higher EQI situations)
12. STATE only: Listed by UE results with EQI coded – 2021 – 2025
13. National Measures – Attendance & UE Means by EQI 10ths (2022 – 2025)
14. Broad Sector Measures – Overall, Ethnicity, Gender, School Governance, School Type, Geographical Area.
15. Boys’ School Groups (Super 8, South Island) – UE and Retention 2024 – 2025.
16. UE Data for 59 Impressive Improvers – 2023 – 2025.
17. Data Summary and Goal Setting Sheet for Schools to Use. 

For professional use f you order the data I will send it immediately (with an invoice that can be paid in your payments cycle). The cost is $400+ GST.

For people using the data for personal reasons a donation is appreciated.


[email protected]

The Herald reports:

Minister for Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says she has lost confidence in Fire and Emergency’s chief executive Kerry Gregory, who she says kept information from her about a “seriously significant incident” for a whole year.

Speaking to media from Parliament this afternoon, van Velden revealed Fire and Emergency has been referred to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

“I have become aware of a serious breach of the no surprises within Fire and Emergency, it is of a nature that is so significant that I no longer have confidence in the chief executive of Fire and Emergency or have confidence that the information that I’m receiving is correct,” the minister said.

Wow, that is a bomb going off. A public declaration of no confidence in a CE, all but means the board must remove him. I’m fascinated by what is this information that was hidden from the Minister.

“I’m not at the ability to disclose further information, all that I can say is that within the last fortnight, I’ve been made aware that significant information was withheld from me by the chief executive of Fire and Emergency for a full year, even after he received external advice telling him that he needed to let me know.

If he had advice telling him he must inform the Minister, then who on earth did this not happen?

“I immediately contacted the board chair as well as the chief executive to let them know that I have no longer any confidence in the chief executive of Fire and Emergency,” she said.

That would not have been enjoyable calls.

This shows annual food price inflation for NZ and four other countries for each three year period (2015 – 2017, 2018 – 2020, 2021 – 2023, 2024 – Jun 26).

In NZ food princes only increased 1.4% annually in the last term of the Key/English Government. Australia and US were slightly lower and UK and Canada quite a bit higher.

In Labour’s first term they increased 1.8%, which was higher than the UK and lower than Australia (just), US and Canada.

Labour’s second term saw annual food price increases of 7.3%. This was ,much higher than Australia, and quite bit more than Canada and US. UK was even higher.

In the 10 quarters since 2023, annual food price inflation has averaged 3%, marginally higher than the US at 2.9%, but below US, Australia and Canada.

This to me doesn’t suggest there is a specific problem in NZ with food prices.

The Herald reports:

Former Speaker of the House Adrian Rurawhe has died this morning at Rātana Pā, his family announced.

Rurawhe was Speaker in the last Labour Government’s second term and was an MP in the Te Tai Hauāuru electorate since 2014.

“Adrian Rurawhe was one of the finest people ever to sit in the New Zealand Parliament,” Labour leader Chris Hipkins said.

“He carried the mana of his people and of the Speaker’s Chair with dignity and respect. He was firm without ever needing to raise his voice, and he was universally respected across every party in the House.“

Members of every party sought his counsel because they knew it would be honest, considered, and given in confidence.

I can’t recall an MP ever saying a bad word about Rurawhe. He was well liked and respected, and will be missed.

By Lucy Rogers

The two remaining anti-Israel factions I wish to cover in this series are (a) Muslims and (b) ethnic minorities struggling to process hurt and anger due to racism and colonial oppression of indigenous peoples. This post will cover the former.

As a preface: I have chosen not to label either of these factions “intellectually dishonest” per se, for a few reasons. Firstly, I know that I would be playing into the hands of my enemies because I would immediately face the bad faith accusation that I believe all Muslims intellectually dishonest by virtue of being a Muslim (or for that matter, all members of ethnic minorities struggling to process hurt due to racism by virtue of the fact) which would be grossly offensive and is not in fact my view.

Secondly, in fact the Muslims at these protests are by far the faction I have the most respect for (with people struggling to process race-related hurt a close second). I think that the mentality that “OK, what happened on October 7 was wrong, but I am a Palestinian and I am focussed on Palestinian suffering” is a perfectly respectable position, as long as violence towards Israeli civilians is genuinely condemned. My primary intention at these protests has always been to protest intellectually dishonest Westerners, not Muslims per se. However, Westerners have no such excuse for their wilful refusal to engage with atrocities committed against Israeli civilians on October 7.

Thirdly, I think that “intellectual dishonesty” is quite harsh language, and while various other factions (such as Westerners who are starry-eyed about Hamas because allyship with the oppressed makes them feel good about themselves) are deserving of it I am reluctant to describe anyone I have more respect for in such terms.

Anyway, I have a number of insights on the Muslim faction resulting from regular kōrero (dialogue) with them over the past two and a half years. Muslims tend to perceive the Palestine/ Israel conflict as a defensive war. (Ditto the Israel/ Lebanon conflict.) This is not just due to the displacement of 700,000 Arabs in 1948: it is also because ongoing violence from a small group of Jewish extremists in the West Bank/ J&S is a serious problem according to Palestinians I have spoken to at the protests. Apparently attacks are happening weekly at present and according to people I have spoken to at the protests this has been happening ever since the American embassy was transferred from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem some years ago. (I note by the way that the Jewish extremists in question are a couple of hundred lunatics out of 8 million Israelis: they’re less numerous than the Mongrel Mob.)

One man I spoke to has just got back from the West Bank/ J&S. Apparently a Jewish extremist was caught by the Palestinian Authority with a rifle in the past fortnight as he was about to attack a mosque in Ramallah. The PA handed him over to Israel, who allegedly released him. (I have no way of verifying this because it isn’t being reported in Western media.) He sent me a video from the Arab media showing the handover, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13LdVrouz-g

Furthermore, the IDF detaining Palestinians in the West Bank/ J&S without trial is perceived to be the moral equivalent of Hamas taking Israeli hostages on October 7. According to the same man, Jewish extremists attacked his village during the past fortnight as of the time of writing, and the villagers tried to stop them. The actual villagers involved could not be identified, so the IDF allegedly then came and arrested three random villagers instead out of revenge. Having been the victim of police bullying myself, I can well believe that this happens when police (or soldiers) exercise unaccountable power.

I disagree by the way that Israeli prisoners and Hamas hostages are morally equivalent. No Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli prison has ever been forced to his own grave, unlike Evyatar David. While as in any country isolated cases of rape no doubt happen in Israeli prisons it would be severely punished by the Israeli courts, whereas the idea of Hamas prosecuting the people who raped Israeli hostages is laughable. And until recently Israel did not engage in the death penalty, whereas many hostages were murdered without having done anything wrong.

According to the protesters, Israel also arrests journalists who are critical of them, including people who work for Al Jazeera. (Again, this is one side of the argument. Many Al Jazeera “journalists” are Hamas operatives. The hostage handover was planned, directed and filmed by Hamas. But I am relaying what I have been told by Palestinians at the protests.) Accordingly, there is considerable resentment amongst Palestinians at the protests in Auckland that people called for the release of the 251 Israeli hostages but following the ending of that crisis that the plight of 9000 Palestinians held without trial in Israeli prisons is perceived to be being ignored. (One person I spoke to estimates that about half of Palestinians in administrative detention are there for no good reason, including women and children.)

There is a lack of awareness amongst most of the Muslim protesters of the extent of the atrocities committed on October 7. Many of them sincerely believe that civilian casualties are exaggerated and some of them also believe that the Israeli army murdered its own people pursuant to the Hannibal Directive. (This is a discredited conspiracy theory which was refuted in a UN report on the subject, which found that only 14 Israeli deaths could be attributed to the Israeli military. I am not agreeing with this nonsense, I am simply explaining here how many of the Muslim protesters see things.)

Also, in their view the casualties in Gaza (70,000 people including combatants) far outnumber the casualties of October 7. (Again, I am not agreeing with this logic necessarily, but explaining their perspective.) Accordingly, some Muslim protesters can get quite upset with me at the protests in Auckland for predominantly focussing on the Israeli narrative when they think that the suffering in the conflict disproportionately falls on Palestinians.

Many Muslims also perceive Israeli expansionism in the West Bank/ J&S as a form of fascism. Netanyahu’s government is believed to want to take over the entire West Bank/ J&S (not entirely without reason, I should add) and the belief that Jews are God’s chosen people is perceived to justify the conquest of the land. I have heard people sincerely compare Netanyahu with Hitler. (In my view of course this is beyond ridiculous because the casualties in Gaza are nowhere near comparable with the 11 million victims of Nazi Germany, and the number of Palestinians killed by Jewish extremists in the West Bank/ J&S this year is in the double digits.)

Most of the Muslims at the Auckland protests do not support a two-state solution. People I have spoken to say that they think that Jewish and Muslim communities have coexisted in the past (for example, in Iran, which still has 8000 Jews today) and could co-exist in the future in one state. I think this is absolutely naive of course because it would just result in a massacre (October 7 is evidence of that) and Hamas has sworn to drive all the Jews into the sea, but this is what they think.

I have some criticisms of the Islamic faction. Firstly, I think that hostility towards Jews is far more common amongst Muslims than many of them want to admit, and this plays far more of a role in the Israel/ Palestine conflict than many of them acknowledge. Secondly, as I already mentioned earlier in this series it is entirely possible to form sincere beliefs which are influenced subconsciously by things that a person wishes to be true. October 7 denial is really no different from Holocaust denial. They arrive at that stance because that is what they want to believe. (In fact, I suspect that Holocaust denial would be more common amongst Westerners if the villains weren’t white.) The same is true of October 7 denial, which comes back to hostility to Jews qua Jews.

In other words: despite the very legitimate criticisms that Muslims and Palestinians have of Israel, and despite the fact that many of them are good people, the refusal of many of them to believe what happened on October 7 in the face of overwhelming evidence available via a simple Google search reflects there is something more to the attitude that many Muslims have on the conflict than just balanced criticism.

This is complicated of course by the fact that when sufficient numbers of people within a culture accept falsehoods because that is what they want to believe, people who are genuinely intellectually honest and who hold beliefs for the right reasons can come to believe those falsehoods. Which is to say: I think there is genuine room for kōrero (dialogue) amongst Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, and whakaako (education) about October 7, which is encouraging and which is consistent with Gazan political commentator Ahmed Alkhatib reporting that about 50% of Gazans he encountered while on a humanitarian trip there were willing to change their views on what happened on October 7 when confronted with video evidence.

Lindsay Mitchell writes:

The protesting podcaster took issue retorting that a beneficiary would never get more than an employed person. That Henry was just making stuff up.

Henry himself appeared on the NewstalkZB show and said, “I certainly didn’t say this person was single. My assumption actually was that this was a couple that just had a child.” …

An entry-level/apprentice mechanic wage starts around $23 to $26 per hour (training wages for registered apprentices can start lower around $19.16/hour). A qualified/General Mechanic earns an average of $30 to $43 per hour.

So the mechanic’s wage for a six day week would range from $763 – $1,541 take home pay.

What would an unemployed couple with just one child receive? No need to guess or speculate.

The latest MSD report on beneficiary incomes (April 2025) shows the couple would receive, on average, $976 net. If they had two or more children that figure would rise to $1,255. These figures would have increased on April 1, 2026.

So it is entirely likely that the mechanic wasn’t lying and, by proxy, neither was Paul Henry.

Be great to see an analysis like this in the legacy media.

There is still huge pressure in the health system. but things are heading in the right direction.

Rod Dixon epitomises what it means to be a kiwi.

I am very happy to help any school/organisation to run a Rod Dixon’s Kids’ Marathon.

[email protected]

The Press reports:

“Globally, Meta has invested more than US$20b in safety and security since 2016 and employs over 40,000 people in safety and security roles worldwide.”

40,000 staff!

Meta said that in the first quarter of 2025, it removed “5.1 million pieces of bullying and harassing content globally – 73.3% of which was removed before anyone reported it to us”.

TikTok said similar things in its submission to the committee: “TikTok invests more than US$2b each year in our trust and safety work globally. This supports tens of thousands of trust and safety experts, alongside sophisticated AI tools, who work around the clock, across the globe, to keep our platform safe.”

TikTok said that from the start of 2023 to mid-2025, it permanently banned more than 375,000 accounts and removed more than 1.3m videos in New Zealand for violating community guidelines. It said it removed more than 280,000 accounts in New Zealand of users suspected of being under 13.

Wait – Til Tok banned 375,000 NZ accounts?? That’s a huge number. Why?

Meta said that in the first quarter of 2025, “we found and took action on 6.8m pieces of suicide and self-injury content, including eating disorder content, on Facebook and 9.9m on Instagram, of which 98.9% and 99.1% respectively was found and actioned before it was reported to us.”

The problem with eating disorders isn’t people on Meta promoting anorexia. It is young women and girls constantly seeing images of perfect bodies, and it driving them to thinking their body needs to change, and developing anorexia.

A guest post from a reader in Germany:

Things are more complex than most bloggers (particularly those on the other side of the globe) can see.

The AfD was incorporated in early 2013. Most of the founding members were frustrated former members of the CDU (Christian Democratic Party, the one with chancellors Adenauer, Erhard, Kohl and Merkel) and by some university professors, mostly conservative economists.

Their primary focus was on the fact that Germany was giving up national sovereignty rights in favour of the EU. Their strongest point of critics was the tact that Germany had given up the Deutsche Mark in favour of the EURO.

At that time there were no serious doubts that the AfD was still on the bottom of our constitution although on the right wing of the democratic spectrum. Although some of us did see a risk that they would collect the remains of some success-less small ultra right parties that had recently gone out of the race.

But before the end of the last decade most of the former CDU renegades had already quit the AfD and also the professors were gone because of the AfD moving into a very nationalistic direction. 

Since then a new group of politicians are running the AfD show: persons like Alice Weidel, Tino Chrupalla, Bjoern Hoecke, Maximilian Krah, Stefan Brantner and others are in the driving seat. These guys advocate extremely right positions but of course not by changing the party’s program but by talking in townhalls, on beerfests and by posts in social media.

So we have three levels of political content:

1. The AfD official program which stays on the ground of our constitution (although it calls for some changes of the constitution). 

This program is far right, but not outspokenly fascist and not antisemitic. It is nationalistic and focuses on “traditional values“.

Example: „The AfD commits itself to the traditional family as a guiding principle.”

The fact that Alice Weidel is violating these traditional values by being married to a woman who comes from a faraway culture, raising children with that woman and living in Switzerland thus avoiding income tax payments in Germany looks like George Orwells „doublethinking“ to me. She sees herself as Germany’s next chancellor, but I bet that – in case the AfD will win the next federal election – the old and nasty boys in the party will keep her down. 

2. Speeches by AfD leaders during election campaigning go beyond the words of their official program but are usually staying close to the constitutional grounds. They request „immediate remigration of all foreigners“ and not only of illegal migrants but also naturalised children of previous immigrants. You could possibly interpret hidden antisemitism between the lines of some speeches, but they are not justiciable. 

There certainly is a tendency towards a revisionist view on Germany’s past such that the focus is directed towards Germany’s historical successes and that the „Third Reich“ is described as a minor slip-up which unfortunately lead to damages and sufferings in the world but they never forget to talk about those millions of Germans who were expulsed out of Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Czechoslovakia as a consequence of the war. (One of the founding members of the party named the twelve years of the Third Reich „a bird’s dropping in Germany’s one thousand years of successful history“.)

The most dangerous guy in my view is Bjoern Hoecke. 

He keeps low profile and is waiting for his chance. 

Hoecke seems to believe that he will be Germany’s next strong man.

3. The AfD base: People voting for AfD are typically low educated frustrated male persons living in small towns and rural villages. Their understanding and outspoken expectation of what the AfD will do, once they will come in power, goes far beyond the speeches and the official program of the party and it clearly leaves the constitutional and legal bottom line of our country: they request death penalty, mass deportation even of German citizens with migrational history, alliance with Russia, Exit from EU and from Nato, no support for Ukraine, stop of environmental protection programs, no E-vehicles and back to fossil fuels and many other yesterday’s things. 

It is in these circles that you also find antisemitc comments. 

I live in a village with 40+% AfD voters, their motivation ist caused by frustration, stupidity and a strong backward orientation. 

I do see a parallel to the late 1920s in this situation. We know where it lead to starting in 1933 and where it ended in 1945.

It does happen that AfD adherents display swastika flags during village festivals and sing songs from second world war (both activities being punishable by law but midnight at a village festival can be far away from civilised behaviour). 

And it ist during such events that antisemitic phrases come up regularly.

In fact I am much more afraid of these people being the AfD’s voters, than of Alice Weidel. 

But they are the base of the AfD and they will drive the right extremists within the party. 

In my analysis this is the place for a potential fascist movement to start and guys like Hoecke are pulling the ropes from behind the scene.

No AfD official (and no other official in Germany) will openly state antisemitic phrases or deny the holocaust (which would be punishable by §130 of our penal code with up to 5 years emprisonment). 

However all Jewish organisations in Germany are strongly warning that the supporters of the AfD have a strong but hidden antisemitic mindset.

Allow me a comment on your remark on the „Muslim immigration“ describing two examples:

1. I recently met a young woman from Afghanistan. She had gone to school in Kabul during the 2010s and graduated (B.A. in economy) at the American University there (before it was closed by the Taliban in the early 2020s). She had some work experience with a UN organisation in Kabul but had to leave the country when the Taliban came in power again. 

She fled to Germany in 2023 or 24 and is now trying to continue her studies with the goal of a M.A. 

If she would have stayed in Kabul she probably would be wife number four of some Taliban idiot who would possibly lock her up and torture her and get her pregnant every year.

This young lady is still a Muslim although she wears western clothes and tries to integrate into European society.

2. We have a famous (or rather notorious) islamist preacher in Germany named Pierre Vogel.

As he is a native German speaker he can tell us about the miracles of his religion in a comprehensible way. He is calling to break German laws and rules and violating common sense with each and every word under the cover of being a religious preacher. 

I do not hesitate to name him one of the worst enemies of our free society.

He did not come by immigration but was born in Germany by a German mother.

There is no way to „remigrate“ him: German constitution expressly prohibits the withdrawal of citizenship of a German born citizen (for good reason, because that was what the Nazi did to the German Jews).

In my view the base of the problem is not (at least not only) Muslim immigration: The underlying problem is religion in any of their proselytic variations:

Catholics have killed thousands or millions of people when they were running their missionaries over the world (i.e. in South America and Africa).

Muslims are terrorising Europe, North America and Africa since centuries.

US American Evangelical Christians are terrorising US population and expanding all over the so called Christian world in order to turn back time by at least two thousand years. 

Hindus (together with Sikhs and Jaina) are suppressing all other religions in India.

Any kind of hierarchically organised religion has the tendency to incapacitate the individual.

It is a setup for disaster wherever religious organisations are close to or become identical with the power structures of a state – not only in Teheran and Jeddah but also in Rome, London, Washington, Delhi and Beijing (because hardcore communism is also a religion).

I hear you talking about „human liberty combined with human responsibility“ and I agree with your view as a general rule.

But how can a free and responsible human believe in gods or other supranatural beings and push responsibility up to them?

We are still lagging behind the ideals of the philosophers of the enlightenment who were ready to abolish religion in favour of human reason (they spoke about „ratio“).

So I agree with your scepticism against Muslim immigration but I tend to see it as one appearance only of the big danger of religion in general. 

In real life praxis: How can we set up a community and state organisation that will help the young lady from Afghanistan to escape the terror of the Taliban and prevent guys like the German born islamist preacher to poison the brains of our kids and call for terror in our country and do the right thing for all cases between these two extremes?

I think, humanity will need a very pragmatical and consensual approach to this situation and we need political and social processes looking for solutions rather than principles. 

And we definitely do not have the visionary leaders in the world who could join forces and drive such a process.

Morons like Trump, Putin, the Ayatollahs and pidgin politicians like the actual German chancellor do not have the capabilities nor the balls to drive change and progress.

I have now analysed 46 of the 71 electorate races on my Patreon, and have just started to enter Auckland. So it includes everything south of the Bombay Hills, and five of the seven Māori seats to date.

This is how I have the state of play so far.

Once I have done all 71 seats, and we have all party lists submitted, I will profile who may make Parliament based on the latest public polls.

The Taxpayers’ Union has launched their Bribe-O-Meter, which tracks the cost of party promises. It is useful and depressing. To date, the total cost of party policies are:

1. National $1.94b
2. ACT 2.63b
3. NZ First $45b
4. Labour $50b
5. TOP $201b
6. Greens $237b

The site has details of the costing for each party. Boy a Labour-Green-TOP Government looks fun!

ACT have released their policy on abolishing the Waitangi Tribunal once it has concluded the historical Treaty claims, and remove its jurisdiction. over contemporary issues.

There have been 1,070 contemporary claims made to the Waitangi Tribunal. So far I can only find one of those claims (the 1995 Kiwifruit Marketing Claim) that did not find the Crown or Government had breached the Treaty. So it would seem that somewhere between 99% and 99.9% of all claims result in the Waitangi Tribunal saying the Government is wrong.

David Lupton has said that he thinks the Treaty itself should be put into legislation (as TPM advocates), not the principles. He sets out why below.

By Lucy Rogers

A few days ago I advertised a counterprotest run by NZ Against Hamas against the celebration of the events of October 7 2023 in Auckland. I can now confirm that we will also be holding a counterprotest in Wellington from 11am to 2pm on Parliament Lawn against the anti-Israel protesters. Please come along and invite anyone who might be interested.

Politico reports:

The nation’s major television networks are declining to participate in White House pool duties moving forward in response to the Trump administration’s decision to bar CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the White House, Fox News Washington Bureau Chief and current TV pool chair Bryan Boughtonwrote in an email to TV pool subscribers.

It is good to see Fox News withdraw from the pool, because of the ban on other TV networks. Not only is it the right thing to do in principle, it is in their self interest. You wouldn’t want a future Democratic President banning Fox News from the White House pool.

A guest post by Michael Littlewood:

It’s difficult to compare countries’ retirement income systems but, in a new report, I have tried, as I describe the differences and similarities between New Zealand and Australia. We hear a great deal about Australia, probably because most of our financial service providers are Australian-owned and their own incomes reflect funds under their management.

The comparison is worth the effort because the clamour for a compulsory version of KiwiSaver usually draws on the superficially stunning success of Australia’s ‘Superannuation Guarantee’ scheme. Compulsion has been very kind to the retirement saving industry, so we understand why players on this side of the Tasman might want to repeat the experience.

How many times have you heard the A$4 trillion mantra? In fact, superannuation schemes in Australia now own about A$4.5 trillion, while our own KiwiSaver schemes have just NZ$138 billion. The comparison is apparently damning.

However, there is much more to the story if we want to understand what’s really happening under the hood.

Australia’s compulsory system has transformed how household wealth is packaged there: superannuation is 49% of Australian households’ financial assets against 11% in New Zealand.

But it has not made households wealthier, relative to their incomes: net worth is nine to ten times income in both countries, and the median New Zealand adult ranks fourth in the world for wealth, only one place behind Australia.

Meanwhile, Australian household debt has climbed to 177% of income while New Zealand’s has been flat at about 125% for two decades.

The latest numbers show that Australian taxpayers spend almost as much on tax concessions for their superannuation contributions as they spend on the Age Pension itself. Once Australia’s superannuation tax concessions are counted, the true fiscal gap (cost to taxpayers) between the two retirement systems disappears and, over the long-term, is roughly half what the headline superannuation numbers suggest.

Poverty rates amongst the old in each country also don’t establish a ‘winner’. There are no official numbers in Australia but some reports suggest that it has about as many pensioners in poverty as here in New Zealand. So compulsion doesn’t seem to have fixed that either.

Nothing in the available data shows widespread under-saving in New Zealand so what, precisely, might a compulsory KiwiSaver’s objective be?.

However, New Zealand does need a research-led discussion about both public and private provision for retirement. We have never done that before.

My new report suggests that a compulsory KiwiSaver can wait until the data exist to justify it.

You can download the paper at https://www.pensionmatters.nz