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Speaker 1: Do we have some good economic news surround out the year.

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Speaker 1: GDP grew one point one percent in Q three, which

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Speaker 1: is close to three times what the Reserve Bank was packing.

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Speaker 1: Growth was broad based as well, with fourteen of sixteen

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Speaker 1: industries up, including manufacturing and construction. Richard Preble is a

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Speaker 1: former Associate Finance Minister and with.

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Speaker 2: US morning, Richard, good morning.

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Speaker 1: Are you taking heart from this going into next year?

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Speaker 2: I most certainly am. Actually, the both US quarters turn

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Speaker 2: out to be good news. The negative quarter of one

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Speaker 2: percent out to be just a dip, but that persuaded

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Speaker 2: the Reserve Bank to stop smashing the economy with high

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Speaker 2: interest rates. Don't know what else would have. But September

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Speaker 2: is basically, how can I put it, ancient history? What

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Speaker 2: we want to know is what's happening now. And there

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Speaker 2: are other indicators that indicate that we've had six months

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Speaker 2: of growth and we're ending the year strongly.

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Speaker 1: So I mean, at the moment, it sounds like we

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Speaker 1: might be in a quarter that's about zero point three

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Speaker 1: zero point four percent growth. Is that good enough?

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Speaker 2: No? I think we're doing better than that. What I

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Speaker 2: think we've got a very good world leading indicator of

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Speaker 2: how the economy is going. That's Massy University's TDP Live

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Speaker 2: website that uses artificial intelligence measures things like fate movements

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Speaker 2: off the wharf and other contemporary data to give a

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Speaker 2: daily figure of how the economy is growing. And right

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Speaker 2: now it says the economy is growing nearly one percent

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Speaker 2: and has been for the last six months. While it's

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Speaker 2: not spectacular, that's still solid growth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay. So the thing about it is, though,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we're getting are we at risk of perhaps

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Speaker 1: getting ahead of our skis on these numbers because next

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Speaker 1: year we still have unemployment that is high and ticking up,

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Speaker 1: We've still got the election that we need to face,

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Speaker 1: which cool spending, We've We've still got a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of stuff that isn't doing too well.

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Speaker 2: A yeah, but if we employments was the last indicator,

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Speaker 2: and the Department of Statistics, you know, it's very historic,

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Speaker 2: so you have to go back months to look at

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Speaker 2: their at their figures. It's better to look at job

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Speaker 2: advertising and there's a major site to seek and it's

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Speaker 2: up seven percent. That would indicate that employments well soft

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Speaker 2: is actually heading in the is now heading in the

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Speaker 2: right direction.

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Speaker 1: Now Richard, I want to get your take on this

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Speaker 1: debate about Nikola Willis needing to trim more fat out

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Speaker 1: of the books. Are you in the camp of keep

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Speaker 1: spending the money to avoid human misery or cuts to

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Speaker 1: save the books.

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Speaker 2: I'm in the I'm in the cut. The government's got

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Speaker 2: heaps of waste and very poor spending and could have

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Speaker 2: easily taken out another couple of billion. But this is

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Speaker 2: what I would say in Nichola Willis's defense. The government

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Speaker 2: again is a lag so we have to earn the

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Speaker 2: money and then we pay the taxes. So if we've

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Speaker 2: had a year of not good growth, then the government's

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Speaker 2: own tax revenues haven't been growing. But if the economy

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Speaker 2: keeps going it the way it's going, then the government's

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Speaker 2: books will improve significantly. And I'll say this about treasury productions.

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Speaker 2: Treasury always gets it wrong, so it underestimates how bad

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Speaker 2: things are going to be, and then it underestimates how

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Speaker 2: good things are going to be. I think there's every

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Speaker 2: indication that twenty twenty six will be a very good year.

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Speaker 2: And interestingly, a net twenty one percent of us according

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Speaker 2: to the Morgan Pole, also think that. And I'm on

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Speaker 2: with the messas twenty twenty six should be a good year.

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Speaker 1: Good I'm so pleased to hear it. Richard, thank you

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Speaker 1: very much. Look after yourself, Richard Prebble, former Associate Finance Minister.

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Speaker 1: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks.

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