Politics 🗳️ NZ Politics

Highlights Only (8)
Putting aside party politics, does anyone think this period now is still the covid hangover? 10 years down the track looking back I think we will say it is.

Biggest debt and reserve bank reaction and we’re still recovering?

Seems like the last 5 years have been a continuous struggle with nothing to show for it.

Govt still financially stuffed; businesses still stuffed and employees still stuffed.

Still think we’ve got a bit of work to get the fundamentals right to allow business to pull us out of all this.
 
wizard of Tauranga said:
Putting aside party politics, does anyone think this period now is still the covid hangover? 10 years down the track looking back I think we will say it is.

Biggest debt and reserve bank reaction and we’re still recovering?

Seems like the last 5 years have been a continuous struggle with nothing to show for it.

Govt still financially stuffed; businesses still stuffed and employees still stuffed.

Still think we’ve got a bit of work to get the fundamentals right to allow business to pull us out of all this.
Click to expand...
I’d say a lot of it is due to that. If you have a look at geographies that had strict lockdowns (NZ and VIC come to mind) - these are still in a mess. We pumped the economy to keep it alive, and the comedown is harder than most

That and the RBNZ. They were about to start hiking rates in 2020, but binned that when we started locking down (fearing the economy tanking) so kept rates low, and for far too long. They were meek when they should have been bold and bold when they should have been meek (not my quote), but you can see that in their recent rates cycle
 
defensivebomb said:
I’d say a lot of it is due to that. If you have a look at geographies that had strict lockdowns (NZ and VIC come to mind) - these are still in a mess. We pumped the economy to keep it alive, and the comedown is harder than most

That and the RBNZ. They were about to start hiking rates in 2020, but binned that when we started locking down (fearing the economy tanking) so kept rates low, and for far too long. They were meek when they should have been bold and bold when they should have been meek (not my quote), but you can see that in their recent rates cycle
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I agree about the reserve bank but is that in hindsight?

Most interest rate movements have been pretty much as expected and predicted by bank and independent economists.

With the over heated market we also had structural costs increased like extra weeks sick leave, massive minimum wage increase, huge extra compliance burdens, etc that left a lot of businesses on shaky ground when the tide went out.
 
Let's be clear, this government has;

- doubled the trade deficit
- doubled debt
- increased unemployment by 50%

I am sure they'll get unemployment up to match the other economic indicators soon though.
 
wizard of Tauranga said:
Putting aside party politics, does anyone think this period now is still the covid hangover? 10 years down the track looking back I think we will say it is.

Biggest debt and reserve bank reaction and we’re still recovering?

Seems like the last 5 years have been a continuous struggle with nothing to show for it.

Govt still financially stuffed; businesses still stuffed and employees still stuffed.

Still think we’ve got a bit of work to get the fundamentals right to allow business to pull us out of all this.
Click to expand...
I am not sure everyone would agree what covid hangover means. Seems more a tagline than a real quantifiable thing.

I Covid we spent a lot to prop up the economy. When that spending stopped the funded projects would complete (hopefully) and if we don't fund further there needs to be something to fill the gap (private or public). There hasn't been.

We increased the number of public sector workers under labor but is that really due to covid? Just what a left leaning party does in power.
National should wind that back to pre-labour/pre-covid levels if they are serious about getting finances in check but they also need to do that without impacting services or increasing consultant spending.

What else is there?
 
Tragic said:
I am not sure everyone would agree what covid hangover means. Seems more a tagline than a real quantifiable thing.

I Covid we spent a lot to prop up the economy. When that spending stopped the funded projects would complete (hopefully) and if we don't fund further there needs to be something to fill the gap (private or public). There hasn't been.

We increased the number of public sector workers under labor but is that really due to covid? Just what a left leaning party does in power.
National should wind that back to pre-labour/pre-covid levels if they are serious about getting finances in check but they also need to do that without impacting services or increasing consultant spending.

What else is there?
Click to expand...
The issue I have is 3 years ago I investigated a significant building project and pulled out because it wasn’t viable. Prices were skyrocketing, everyone had heaps of work and could charge more, etc, etc.

Now the project is about 40% more expensive due to inflation and my return from the project hasn’t changed.

Why hasn’t cost returned to pre covid levels? Why isn’t inflation dropping to claw back the irrational 40% price increases due to a one off event?

We’ve structurally screwed ourselves because business fundamentals don’t stack up and they are closing left, right and centre.
 
wizard of Tauranga said:
The issue I have is 3 years ago I investigated a significant building project and pulled out because it wasn’t viable. Prices were skyrocketing, everyone had heaps of work and could charge more, etc, etc.

Now the project is about 40% more expensive due to inflation and my return from the project hasn’t changed.

Why hasn’t cost returned to pre covid levels? Why isn’t inflation dropping to claw back the irrational 40% price increases due to a one off event?

We’ve structurally screwed ourselves because business fundamentals don’t stack up and they are closing left, right and centre.
Click to expand...
Well, you could ask your mates the government.
 
Tragic said:
Where do you see the debt numbers? Just interested by that, the other two I expected.
Click to expand...
Unemployment has gone from 4% in Dec-23 to 5.2% now. It hasn’t doubled, like the earlier poster said. It is up 30%, not 50%. Source - statsnz

Debt has gone from $155bn from Jun-23 to $185bn in Jun-25, so up 20%, not 100%. $10bn of which is interest on the debt balances Grant created. Source - treasury

Hopefully the improvements in education drive better accuracy in people calculating percentages, but it will take a few years
 
wizard of Tauranga said:
The issue I have is 3 years ago I investigated a significant building project and pulled out because it wasn’t viable. Prices were skyrocketing, everyone had heaps of work and could charge more, etc, etc.

Now the project is about 40% more expensive due to inflation and my return from the project hasn’t changed.

Why hasn’t cost returned to pre covid levels? Why isn’t inflation dropping to claw back the irrational 40% price increases due to a one off event?

We’ve structurally screwed ourselves because business fundamentals don’t stack up and they are closing left, right and centre.
Click to expand...
Ok but what's the link to covid or the previous government. I don't understand what the root of the problem is, unless it's just gouging because there isn't enough competition?
 
defensivebomb said:
Unemployment has gone from 4% in Dec-23 to 5.2% now. It hasn’t doubled, like the earlier poster said. It is up 30%, not 50%. Source - statsnz

Debt has gone from $155bn from Jun-23 to $185bn in Jun-25, so up 20%, not 100%. $10bn of which is interest on the debt balances Grant created. Source - treasury

Hopefully the improvements in education drive better accuracy in people calculating percentages, but it will take a few years
Click to expand...
That's a lot of extra debt. Seems like a government with great fiscal slogans, but without the policy or nous to delivery on those. If we are going to go into more debt I want to know that the investment we make with the borrowings will lead to greater growth, that ain't happening.
 
Tragic said:
That's a lot of extra debt. Seems like a government with great fiscal slogans, but without the policy or nous to delivery on those. If we are going to go into more debt I want to know that the investment we make with the borrowings will lead to greater growth, that ain't happening.
Click to expand...
So you’re advocating for the fiscally retarded Labour to come back in aye haha
 
Tragic said:
So you don't care how national perform because they're better than labour aye? Just because the bar is low doesn't mean we should accept poor performance.
Click to expand...
Where did I say I don’t care? Of course I care, however there is an attempt on here by someone to present data on the current coalition’s performance that is completely out of context relative to the performance of their predecessors… and then you seem happy to accept this false representation of the data. Also I’m not a fan of any of them, National, Labour or the alternatives that sit further left or right of centre. They’re all just various versions of incompetent.
 
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