In last week's budget Finance Minister Bill English announced the annual contribution of around $2 billion a year would be put on ice until the Government's books went back into surplus in 2020.
Labour has attacked the moved as undermining the long term viability of superannuation and making cuts to entitlements inevitable in the future.
The fund was set up to help pay for the swelling cost of pensions from around 2030 as the population ages.
Labour leader Phil Goff said today said if Labour had been in power it would have continued payments into the fund.
He also said Prime Minister John Key's pledge to maintain entitlements was meaningless because he would not be in office when future governments had to face up to the rising costs.
Mr Key said if Labour won the 2011 election it would mean they would have to borrow up to $7 billion more over a three-year period to continue contributions.
Mr Goff would not say what level of debt was acceptable to Labour, but Treasury believed that the return on investments would outweigh the cost of borrowing.
"Clearly over time the super fund does produce a good rate of return, does produce certainty for people going into retirement, does ease the burden." In Parliament, Mr English said future pension entitlements would be preserved by keeping debt down and building economic growth.
Superannuation would still be funded out of taxes until 2030 and then the fund would make a contribution of up to 14 percent of the cost.
Labour said the suspension of contributions would create a $37 billion hole in the fund.
Mr English disputed this, saying returns were not guaranteed and did not take into account the cost of borrowing the money to put it into the fund.
He said the fund was designed to be funded through surpluses. Payment would have been at the expense of public services or entitlements or by borrowing.
"That would be like a household that had a big mortgage, an overdraft, the car and the fridge on hire purchase -- going off to the bank and saying `we want to borrow money to invest in the share market'," Mr English said.
