Political and economic week: Irresponsible chatter on the economy
No one is suggesting the dairy sector is not going to be hit hard by another season's below-cost returns. With special audio feature.
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Badmouthing the economy, and making economic claims which are just not accurate, is normally something minor, protest parties do.
Yet the Labour Party has been doing this since the start of the year and it reached a crescendo in the last week.
On top of proposing that the government "stiff arm" banks and, effectively calling for politicians to set retail interest rates, Labour leader Andrew Little also claimed the economy is faltering and that economists including the Reserve Bank are expecting a downturn.
None of these things are true. Economists revised growth forecasts upwards as did the Reserve Bank.
And not only that, this week's GDP figures, instead of the consensus forecast of 0.6% growth, hit 0.9% and that was for the second quarter running.
No one is suggesting the dairy sector is not going to be hit hard by another season’s below-cost returns.
But for the first time in New Zealand history, there is a downturn in the price of the country's main commodity export – historically, wool, and since the mid-1990s dairy – without a recession.
This is never happened before and it does signal a change, a real change in the economy.
Tune into the special audio feature to listen to this week's political and economic wrap.
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Fri, 18 Mar 2016
Fri, 18 Mar 2016
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Political and economic week: Irresponsible chatter on the economy
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