 A compulsory retirement savings scheme was designed as an outcome of the coalition agreement between the National Party and the New Zealand First Party following the 1996 general election.The proposed scheme, when put to a referendum in 1997 gained only 8 percent support, with 92 per cent of votes rejecting it.A move to a partially pre-funded or "smoothed pay-as-you-go" system came with the establishing of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund under the aegis of Labour Minister of Finance Michael Cullen in 2001.