Weekly Catchup w/ The Green Party's Ricardo Menendez March: 26 November, 2025
Description
On Monday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced a new National Party Kiwisaver policy, where they’re looking to further increase the default Kiwisaver contribution rate. Luxon said, if re-elected, National would continue to gradually increase the default contribution rates by 0.5% per year until 2032, when both employees and employers would pay 6% each.
The Government also announced that New Zealand would become the latest country to halt new prescriptions for puberty blockers for young people with gender dysphoria. In response to this, Ricardo Menendez March told RNZ that the government was “buying into imported culture wars”.
And last week saw the end of the COP30 climate summit. One of the major outcomes of the summit was that more than 80 countries, including the United Kingdom and Pacific Island Nations, signed a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, but New Zealand chose not to.
For our Weekly Catchup with The Green Party, Wednesday Wire Host Max spoke with MP Ricardo Menendez March about The Green Party’s reaction to the COP30 summit, as well as their thoughts on the Government’s decision to halt new prescriptions of puberty blockers for young people with gender dysphoria.
But first, we started with National’s new Kiwisaver policy.




