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Speaker 1: Starting to look out for New Zealand as all signs

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Speaker 1: point to a stronger economy. The GDP rose by zero

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Speaker 1: point seven percent in the December quarter, indicating we've come

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Speaker 1: out the other side of the recession, not in any

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Speaker 1: great rush, you could say. Council of Trade Unions economist

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Speaker 1: Craig Greeny is with us now. Good morning, Craig.

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Speaker 2: Good morning.

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Speaker 1: We're out of the recession. But does it feel that way.

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Speaker 2: It won't feel like we're for many people. We're out

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Speaker 2: of the recession on a quarterly basis, as you say,

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Speaker 2: we grew zero point seven percent in the last few months,

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Speaker 2: but on an annual basis, we're still down. We're still

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Speaker 2: down one point one percent, so you know where we're

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Speaker 2: certainly stopped the recession, but we're still the economy is

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Speaker 2: still smaller, and with unemployment rising and the cost of

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Speaker 2: living still being a real challenge for many people, it

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Speaker 2: won't feel like we're genuinely seen recovery yet for many

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Speaker 2: people around our heather.

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Speaker 1: What is it going to take for us to feel

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Speaker 1: like the economy is recovering properly? Do you think I.

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Speaker 2: Think many people are going to need to feel that

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Speaker 2: difference in their wallets going to need to feel security

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Speaker 2: and confidence. One of the things we know is that

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Speaker 2: businesses are aren't confident to invest. We saw in the

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Speaker 2: GDP Day of Today yesterday, then business investments for whether

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Speaker 2: consumers are going to need to feel confident and go

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Speaker 2: gotten by a thing, So we saw durable birds, washing machines,

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Speaker 2: those sorts of things. The consumption of those fell last year.

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Speaker 2: I think confidence is really lacking still in an ezialand

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Speaker 2: e colony right now, and that's a function of rising

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Speaker 2: and employment.

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Speaker 1: Sadly, well, we've noticed that we've seen that, haven't we

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Speaker 1: We've seen a recent slamp and consumer confidence. So there's

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Speaker 1: growth that we have seen. Do you think it's sustainable?

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Speaker 2: You honest? Like everything else in the economics, we'll find out.

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Speaker 2: But in terms of the next few months, we expect

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Speaker 2: GDP to keep growing. What happens after that really depends

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Speaker 2: upon international factors, including Donald Trump and tariffs, and the

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Speaker 2: extent to which we see more changes at the budget

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Speaker 2: that again reduce consumer confidence and reduce the confidence of

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Speaker 2: businesses to invest.

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Speaker 1: Unemployment has expected to keep rising. What might every day

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Speaker 1: workers win? Might every day workers sort of see some relief?

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Speaker 2: Well, we keep expecting unemployments to keep rising over the

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Speaker 2: next year, so employments are lagging indicator. So we started

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Speaker 2: to see some growth, but it would be a while

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Speaker 2: before start recruiting in a serious way again, so we

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Speaker 2: expect an employment to keep rising during the yester. By

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Speaker 2: the end of twenty twenty five, workers might feel more

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Speaker 2: confident because of employment's on its way down, but it's

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Speaker 2: the extent to which again that translates into pay packets

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Speaker 2: for workers. Forty six percent of workers last year got

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Speaker 2: to pay rise less than inflation, and we saw many

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Speaker 2: workers heading over says, particularly to Australia where pain conditions

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Speaker 2: are better. So it's going to be a while before

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Speaker 2: or workers feel any benefit from any growth in the economy,

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Speaker 2: and we saw that in the data yesterday where fits

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Speaker 2: were rising at more than three times the speed of

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Speaker 2: wages in New Zealand. So if there is a recovery,

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Speaker 2: it seems to be tilted towards the side of businesses

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Speaker 2: at the moment rather than workers in their pay packet.

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Speaker 1: The beans itsid yesterday that on a per capita basis,

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Speaker 1: our forecast seduced the previous peak and activity won't be

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Speaker 1: achieved until early twenty twenty eight. Would you agree with that?

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Speaker 2: Certainly know the GDP per capita has fallen for two years.

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Speaker 2: It's it's taken a real battering. It's now more it

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Speaker 2: was in more than five percent lower than it's peak.

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Speaker 2: It's going to take a very long time to get

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Speaker 2: back to it. You know, it's peak pre the start

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Speaker 2: of these falls. I hope it doesn't take that long,

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Speaker 2: but it may well be that it takes a very

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Speaker 2: long time to get back to the twenty twenty is

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Speaker 2: raising it as at the matter, but certainly a long

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Speaker 2: way off.

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Speaker 1: Craig I thought the government. The response from the government

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Speaker 1: was very restrained yesterday at that positive result. They're very

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Speaker 1: aware there is a long way to go before New

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Speaker 1: Zealanders feel like we, you know, probably have turned a

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Speaker 1: corner or heading to a good place. What do you

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Speaker 1: want to see from the government in terms of an economic.

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Speaker 2: Plan, Well, that's exactly what I'd like to say, is

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Speaker 2: an economic plan. We had the Going for Growth document

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Speaker 2: which was their economic strategy, and it was eighty bullet points,

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Speaker 2: forty of which have already been done. So it's not

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Speaker 2: really a plan. There's no plan for investment right now.

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Speaker 2: Investment every falls every year over the next four years

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Speaker 2: on physical things like roads, schools, hospitals. We don't have

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Speaker 2: a plan for the workforce. We don't have a plan

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Speaker 2: to tackle that rising unemployment. We don't have a plan

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Speaker 2: to help low income families. And it's probably tackle those

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Speaker 2: things that will start to see the returning confidence, and

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Speaker 2: that returning confidence will result in higher investments and therefore

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Speaker 2: more jobs and the great economic security for workers. And

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Speaker 2: that's what we need at the moment, is is that

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Speaker 2: sense of an economic plan, and sadly it's still missing.

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Speaker 1: Craig, Thank you so much for your time. That was

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Speaker 1: Craig really their Council of Trade Union's economist.

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