4.7% food inflation continues to burn Kiwis just holding on

Here’s why 72 000 are fleeing NZ…

…this has been caused by National’s decision early last year to kill off Labour’s infrastructure pipeline which has had a cascade effect throughout the economy by destroying jobs.

It is no wonder the IPSOS Poll is so damning…

…devastating.

‘Meanwhile over at the Herald, Thomas Coughlin is whistling, ‘we don’t know how lucky we are’ by comparing Economic conditions in 2012 with now…

It is not axiomatic that difficult times make for unpopular governments.

Take former Prime Minister Sir John Key. Under Key, by many metrics the economy was far worse than it is today, particularly in the horror year of 2012. Today’s relatively high unemployment rate of 5.3% (where it’s expected to peak) is equal to some of the lowest rates chalked up under the Key Government, when unemployment was consistently in the high fives and rose as high as 6.7%.

While emigration is at record levels with more than 72,700 Kiwis leaving in the year ended September 2025, that’s only slightly higher than the previous peak of February 2012, when 72,400 Kiwis left – a number that is proportionally far worse than today’s figure when you consider the population was about 900,000 lower.

Public services were also under strain. In 2011 and 2012, Finance Minister Bill English delivered “zero” Budgets, which included no net new spending on public services. The current lot have been far more generous, with net new discretionary spending of $3.2 billion in Budget 2024 and $1.3b in Budget 2025.

National staff recall 2012 as a rough year – a year they feared could signal the beginning of the end for Key, but looking back on it now, you can’t see it in the polling. National polled in the 40s and 50s and Key’s preferred Prime Minister ratings were mostly in the 40s.

…two things.

1: We haven’t seen the AI bubble pop yet, so let’s wait to see if that happens before singing, ‘Always look on the bright side of Life’.

2: The difference between now and then was the level of indebtedness. Kiwis are far more in debt now than in 2012.

Household debt to disposable income in 2012 was 146% and in 2025 it was 168%.

Things are tougher now than when they were in 2012 and this is the main reason why Bernard Hickey believes the austerity agenda by Government hasn’t worked this time the way they did last time.

600 000 Kiwis need help from food banks each month, that’s a grim reality we are not confronting.

It is no wonder National, ACT and NZF are cruising towards a one term Government.

 

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