Northlander Keith Smith says it's too hard to get at your KiwiSaver when you're in real hardship, after being made redundant during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He wants to pay off his $40,000 mortgage but he can't dip into his KiwiSaver to do that and he wants to know why not.
"What I want to do is take the KiwiSaver money, pay off my mortgage so that if I don't get another job and I do head into retirement, at least the house over my head is paid for," the 58-year-old told Seven Sharp.
"It doesn't sound huge in the grand scheme of things but when you've got zero coming in, $40,000 is an awful lot of money."
A mortgage is the biggest expense that most Kiwis will bear, and paying it off means not paying interest. For Mr Smith, that makes sense.
"We're not asking for a government handout or anything. We're just asking for permission to access our own KiwiSaver funds."
Retirement savings expert Michael Littlewood has called for greater flexibility in our retirement savings, like Australia has.
As both countries contemplate a massive money hole, it's not the last of this KiwiSaver conundrum.
"It's a growing sense of desperation," Mr Smith says.
"There's going to be a lot more people like me and they're gonna turn around and say, 'Why can't I have this money?'"
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