Political & Economic week that was: Winston's membership drive
Rob Hosking breaks down the political and economic week that was on NBR Radio and on demand on MyNBR Radio.
To build your own NBR Radio playlist and enjoy instant on-demand access to any audio, sign up for our FREE smartphone-only subscription to NBR ONLINE.
What should have been a quiet week politically, with Parliament not sitting, turned out to be quite volatile.
New Zealand First had its annual conference over the weekend: leader Winston Peters announced a membership drive, saying he could get 10,000 members, which would make it bigger than the Labour Party.
He then said he didn’t say that, and there was the latest ruck in the ongoing match of Winston vs Media – a match which must be well into injury time by now.
Mr Peters does though appear to be making a major play for regional New Zealand votes on the back of his Northland win. Labour, too, is making a pitch for the disaffected outside the main cities, with former leader David Shearer attacking the Australian-owned banks for being too hard on New Zealand farmers. This pitch will run and run over the next 18 months, as the dairy price downturn bites.
On the economic front, the big news is still yet to come – late today there will be an update of Fonterra’s anticipated payout for the season. It will not be good news – although Fonterra may, as it has done in the past, announce a payout figure that turns out to be on the pessimistic side. In the current climate for dairy, though pessimism is not difficult
Elsewhere, quarterly job figures showed a continued surge in the size of the workforce, coupled with a rise in unemployment. Strong net immigration is pushing up the numbers in the job market and although there was a small drop in the participation rate the drop is from an all time record high.
The trend though is almost certainly down from here. Unemployment rose by 0.1% to 5.8%: what was more telling was a 0.4% fall in the number of hours worked.
Use MyNBR Tags to track people and companies — and receive key-word email alerts. Find out how here.
NBR Radio
Fri, 07 Aug 2015
Fri, 07 Aug 2015
© All content copyright NBR. Do not reproduce in any form without permission, even if you have a paid subscription.
Political & Economic week that was: Winston's membership drive
50299