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Speaker 1: There is hope the economy bounced back to life in

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Speaker 1: the December quarter. We're getting numbers today. GDP figures will

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Speaker 1: be revealed this morning. Most economists are picking growth, albeit

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Speaker 1: not much. It's pretty slim. Most projections between point three

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Speaker 1: point five. Westpac is sitting at the point more optimistic end.

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Speaker 1: Senior economist Michael Gordon is with me this morning. Michael,

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Speaker 1: Good morning, Michael, good morning.

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Speaker 2: Hey, good morning.

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Speaker 1: So why a bit more optimism from you?

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Speaker 2: I wouldn't really call it optimism. I think there's within

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Speaker 2: the range of forecasts. It's sort of at the upper end.

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Speaker 2: But I think the number that we're going to see

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Speaker 2: today there's potential for it to be boosted by some

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Speaker 2: technical issues. It's a little tricky to explain, but this

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Speaker 2: I think there's been ongoing issues with kind of understanding

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Speaker 2: the pattern of growth throughout the year. There's some changes

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Speaker 2: that stats New Zealand did last time, I think to

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Speaker 2: not to my mind, have probably not helped with understanding that.

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Speaker 2: I think if you if you go through sector bisect,

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Speaker 2: what it looks to me is probably more like flat

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Speaker 2: for the quarter. There have been some signs of things

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Speaker 2: turning that it's probably been more in early twenty five

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Speaker 2: than in late twenty four.

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Speaker 1: And whatever that number is, I mean, let's hope that

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Speaker 1: it's obviously positive. But whatever the number is, it's going

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Speaker 1: to be led by, isn't it primary exporters doing the

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Speaker 1: heavy lifting.

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Speaker 2: Yes, certainly we've had some good conditions for exporters, strong

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Speaker 2: milk collections really this season, and some pretty decent prices

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Speaker 2: for dairy and milk. I mean, good prices don't go

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Speaker 2: directly into GDP, but that turns into farmers income, that

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Speaker 2: turns into spending in the regions and so on. So

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Speaker 2: that's certainly a helpful factor. We're tending to see the

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Speaker 2: more I guess, the more sectors that are focused on

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Speaker 2: the local markets still struggling, and especially things like construction

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Speaker 2: still really and is quite a steep downturn.

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Speaker 1: Looking ahead, I mean looking at a quarter one twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five, and I know we're about to look backwards today,

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Speaker 1: but looking ahead, you had that confidence survey yesterday. I

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Speaker 1: think you know, Key is feeling a bit jittery. Is

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Speaker 1: that going to impact spending? Does this delay the recovery?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Certainly interesting that that kiey consumers are you know,

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Speaker 2: focused on things like the global uncertainty, given that it

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Speaker 2: hasn't so directly touched us yet, there's always the risk

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Speaker 2: that we get something much more tangible when Trump comes

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Speaker 2: out with his beautiful tariffs on April seconds. But it's

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Speaker 2: something that's playing on people's minds. While we are seeing

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Speaker 2: some pick up in the actual spending numbers, it's been

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Speaker 2: pretty gradual. People are still waiting to feel the relief

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Speaker 2: for lower interest rates in many cases as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and a little bit spoke by what's happening over

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Speaker 1: in the White House, Michael, Thank you for that. Michael Gordon,

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Speaker 1: who's THEES senior economist with WES PAC. This morning, we'll

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Speaker 1: have the number here on News Talk News TALKSB for

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Speaker 1: you later on this morning. This is a JEDDP for

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Speaker 1: fourth quarter last year, finally after how long. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you look at those numbers yesterday on consumer confidence and

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Speaker 1: honestly it's a bit depressing because for the last basically

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Speaker 1: the last twenty years pre COVID, we were in the positive,

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Speaker 1: we were feeling good. There was a blit during the GFC,

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Speaker 1: but then the last five years basically since twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: one ish twenty twenty twenty twenty one, we have been negative,

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Speaker 1: our confidence has been negative, and we were within three

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Speaker 1: points of getting back to positive, and we've slid again

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Speaker 1: thanks to well bit of fear about Trump and his tariffs.

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