The Economy is so damaged from National’s 2024 construction costs that the knock on effect has been devastating.
Business investment is now so weak that banks have not lent any net new money to non-landlord businesses and farmers since May last year!
As Bernard Hickey points out…
those on higher incomes are benefiting from tax breaks and high term deposit rates are simply increasing their savings – household term deposits have risen by $25 billion since the election in 2023!
…the rich got richer and the poor got left behind!
This Government’s economic agenda is to slash the State and hope the market steps in and does it cheaper, but the reality is these austerity budgets plumped up by borrowing for tax cuts while hollowing out public services is seeing an exodus of workers to Australia.
There is no vision here other than to mutilate the public good for the Rights donors.
At some point Kiwis you are going to have to reflect on your post Covid bitterness towards Jacinda and acknowledge this hard right anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-beneficiary, anti-worker, anti-renter, anti-climate Government has betrayed you.
They have used small business morality to enable corporations while selling you culture war revenge fantasies as social policy.
We are better than this Government and their toxic Trolls.
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Consumer NZ
“Our research this month has found that 70% of New Zealanders rank the cost of food and groceries as a top three financial concern.
“Most New Zealanders don’t believe the Government is doing enough to keep food affordable – two-thirds of people said they have low confidence in current government policies.”
They said the conversation about butter prices “overshadows” the wider issue – prices are becoming unsustainable for more and more New Zealanders.
“Of course, we should be focused on growing a high-wage economy to roll with global price spikes – but when this is contrasted with an increasing number of people who are struggling to pay for the basics, we question at what cost?”
With the thousands of younger productive people heading to Australia monthly, what will be left of this country soon?–particularly if this bunch of abject pro capitalist vandals form another Govt.
Impoverished, unemployed, homeless, precariously employed, low waged (most working class people), alienated and oppressed cannot afford the basics, let alone plane tickets even if they had the qualifications to obtain jobs.
This filthy Govt. is coming for working class people on all sides–creating the conditions for mass unemployment then hammering unemployed and underemployed with a shrinking state, union busting, draconian “welfare” and defunding NGOs such as food banks.
It is obvious that a low wage economy, tax free capital gains and low tax for fat cats is not a recipe for funding a well functioning society (who do codgers think is going to pay their super?). Larger farmers are export focused and might soon be defending their livestock from the hungry with firearms. Privatisation of health and all the rest is just a sinking lid on the NZ we need.
All this is well known to TDB readers–what to do about it?
–Left wing leadership for NZ Unions with strategic strike action (not general strike yet Bomber)
–Community direct action including against corporates
–Urgent pressure on NZ Labour to adopt a combined tax the rich policy with Greens and TPM
–Major campaign to get alienated and young to vote in 2026, the first General Election where Boomer age voters will not have numerical superiority
I’ve been trying to understand the reasoning behind the governments deliberate contraction of the domestic economy and I asked ChatGPT for other examples where austerity was used in an economic downturn. This is spookily similar to what we are doing now in NZ.
ChatGPT reply:
Ireland as an example similar to NZ. On the surface, Ireland’s post-2008 recovery looks like a success story after austerity, but it’s important to unpack what really drove that recovery and whether it can be applied to a country like New Zealand.
“Leprechaun Economics” and Phantom Growth
In 2015, Irish GDP grew by 26% in one year — not because of real domestic growth, but due to the relocation of intellectual property assets by multinationals.
Ireland’s Gross National Income (GNI) — which strips out repatriated profits — grew much less.
Housing, health, and infrastructure remained under strain long after headline GDP rebounded.
Labour Migration
Many young people emigrated (to UK, Australia, Canada) during the worst years — reducing domestic pressure on unemployment but also hollowing out domestic demand.
Ireland didn’t recover because of austerity — it recovered despite it, through a mix of tax arbitrage, EU support, and global capital flows.
If anything, the domestic Irish population experienced prolonged hardship, inequality, and underinvestment — much like what austerity risks causing in NZ now.
Had to ask ChatGPT about the economic impact of $1 billion in FDI:
So even under more optimistic investment impact scenarios, we’re still talking about:
Under 1% of total GDP uplift over 3–5 years
Spread across the economy, so not transformational — unless targeted into sectors with wider productivity spillovers (e.g., energy, housing, tech exports)
F*ck me. This government are actually as stupid as they appear. I thought they at least had some twisted, right-wing strategy to sell all the countries assets to overseas hedge funds to ‘balance the books’.
But no – this is ‘Family Boost’ level economics and no-one in NZ is calling them out for it. WTAF.
“No-one is calling them out on it” – Sorry Bomber – apart from TDB, Bernard and BHN. The Standard and also and World Socialist Web Site – have some good economics pieces (when they aren’t eviscerating the NZ left).
It’ll all be over soon; USA will collapse in an implosion of crypto and economic Trumpian fueled suicide.
Nothing much we at TDB can do about it, as with climate change, I believe end stage capitalism has slipped past its tipping point.
4 are Ada comments out off 16, as at evening 24/7. One-quarter of all comments here. What triggers the entity off?
* Ada wants a perfect plan from Labour that ticks all boxes and is funded by And either a new tax or an identified cut in other spending to pay for it, but doesn’t refer to National as attempting it.
* Labour when it should have, didn’t implement anything and if in again would be further slowed by TPM and Greens.
* Changes that would have good result had to be implemented quickly by the gummint, or Labour and Greens would do so themselves as their own idea later.
* The recession was caused by RBNZ to reduce inflation
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