KiwiSaver will become more accessible for farm workers wanting to use their savings to buy their first home under legislation introduced this week.
Up until now rural New Zealanders have often been unable to use the first-home withdrawal because of a typical housing arrangement on the farm where they are working.
This has limited farm workers because the KiwiSaver rules have required people to live in the home which they use the funds to buy.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has said the The KiwiSaver (First Home or Farm) Amendment Bill means farm workers paying into their KiwiSaver and living in accommodation provided by their employer are no longer excluded from making a withdrawal.
"If your job comes with a roof over your head, you should not be locked out of your own savings,” she said.
Willis said the initial legislation was not written with rural New Zealanders in mind.
"That rule was written with a suburban street in mind, not a farm gate. Rural New Zealand has been wearing the cost of it, and we are fixing that."
The changes also provided help for first time farm buyers.
The change means the withdrawal can be used to purchase a farm through a company, trust or partnership, provided the KiwiSaver member has majority ownership and control over the commercial vehicle.
Current rules only allow people to use their KiwiSaver to purchase a first farm if it is brought in their own name.
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Cameron Brewer said almost nobody buys a farm in their own name because it is often both a business and a home.
"A young couple who have spent a decade milking someone else's cows and saving hard have been blocked from their own KiwiSaver by a technicality about whose name is on the title. That is not fair, and it is not smart," he said.
Brewer said this is a way of "fixing the basics and building the future, so the people who work our land can own a piece of it."
The changes began as a member's bill in the name of Rangitīkei MP Suze Redmayne which was adopted by the Government.
SHARE ME