How the Reserve Bank created the recession
The review of the Reserve Bank during Covid published yesterday is a damning indictment of how it went about its tasks between 2020 and...
Labour’s political trap snares National
The political brawl over New Zealand’s grocery prices escalated yesterday, with Labour pledging to forcibly split the wholesale and retail operations of Woolworths and...
Coalition fractures over tax cuts
National turned up at the Business New Zealand pre-election conference yesterday in Wellington bearing gifts.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis was all but promising more tax...
Can Labour make its sums add up
Labour launched its Fiscal Strategy yesterday, but it would be best described as aspirational.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins and Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds repeatedly stressed...
Report contradicts Government denials
The Climate Change Commission yesterday confirmed what farming leaders and the Agriculture Minister have been denying for some time.
On current settings, farming will not...
Bad news for National
The Reserve Bank yesterday did exactly what the Government must have hoped it would not do.
It put a spanner in their re-election chances.
Not only...
We may not be able to afford Willis’s spending cuts
The International Monetary Fund yesterday wound up the pressure on both National and Labour on big gaps in their economic policies.
On National, the Fund...
The Department of No
In a phrase that will resonate across the public service in Wellington, a high-powered report into Treasury describes it as the "Department of No."
The...
Sellout or saviour? Potaka’s controversial DOC plans
Forest and Bird, the Labour Party and luminaries like Helen Clark have mounted a full-on campaign against the Government over its proposals to revamp...
Down on the farm; a new Christopher Luxon
In what may well have been a foretaste of the election campaign, a relaxed and confident Prime Minister turned up at the Farm Field...
The numbers can always change
Yesterday was absolutely not an election-year Budget. Apart from a $450 million war chest set aside for "temporary targeted support" if the fuel crisis...
Willis’s Budget; forecasts – or guesses?
What stands out from the Reserve Bank's economic forecasts yesterday is how different they are from those of Treasury's scenarios produced just over four...
PM’s significant speech
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon yesterda
y dropped a bombshell announcement about the coming Budget.
He confirmed that the Government was to cut another $300 million from...
Can Willis keep the smile on the PM’s face?
The Prime Minister is to make his annual pre-budget speech today.
By any estimate, it will be a hard ask.
There must be a big question...
Once again Willis says “no” to the OECD
Once again, the OECD came to town with a comprehensive review of the New Zealand economy, once again a Finance Minister congratulated them on...
