Forget all about the Goldilocks' Economy. The best nursery parallel for the New Zealand economy is the tale of Cock Robin - except nobody is owning up to being on the execution squad.
Anti-business policies, the rapid ramping up of interest rates and the ill-thought-out decision to front-load major Government spending increases in the June Budget point to the likely candidates.
Leading Government and bureaucratic lights have been brought up on a diet of Mother Goose nursery rhymes - they are of that vintage.
But when it comes to taking responsibility for the collapse of New Zealand's economic growth, they have been extraordinarily silent.
Underlying the general relief by business that the Reserve Bank Governor had gone "dovish" on interest rates last week was the bald fact that our growth rate has collapsed: the June quarter GDP out-turn would in all likelihood be negative, and economic growth for the September quarter was looking weak.
On the bright side, the official cash rate remains at 6.5 per cent after Don Brash stayed his hand a second time instead of raising rates, as he did at five earlier cash-rate reviews.
But in reality any other decision would have been economic suicide.
In explanation, Dr Brash cited the falls in business and consumer confidence that appeared to have led to some deferment of spending, new investment and employment. The exchange rate had fallen markedly to record lows.
While inflation is rising, the bank is able to ignore the recent rises in petrol and cigarette prices, provided they do not trigger a surge in general inflation.
When the Reserve Bank released its May monetary policy statement, it forecast that New Zealand would achieve economic growth of 3.5 per cent for the March 2001 year.
This was just short of the 4 per cent global growth rates that Finance Minister Michael Cullen and Dr Brash have cited as helping to underpin local export performance.
But three months' later the forecast has been reduced to 2 per cent - still positive but a long way off the average rates of 3-4 per cent this economy must sustain if it is to hold its own.
Importantly, the forecasts contained in the bank's August monetary policy statement are well beneath the Treasury's 3.7 per cent nominal GDP forecast for the March 2001 year, which underpins the revenue forecasts in Dr Cullen's June Budget.
The $1 billion Budget operating surplus that Dr Cullen had forecast for the 2000/2001 fiscal year - on the central forecast scenario of 3.7 per cent growth - is now at risk.
The Treasury's economic and fiscal forecasts show the economy is now tracking on the "weaker domestic demand scenario" if the Reserve Bank's 2 per cent growth forecast is applied to the Budget numbers.
Under this scenario, Dr Cullen's $1 billion surplus reduces to a mere $400 million - a figure that leaves little tolerance for further risk on either the expenditure or revenue tracks.
Tellingly, Dr Cullen has little room to move if he wishes to begin the pre-funding of baby-boomers' superannuation payments during this parliamentary term.
The superannuation scheme was to have been funded, in part, by Budget operating surpluses.
But unless the Government can stimulate economic growth, Dr Cullen's focus will have to inevitably turn to reducing Government spending to ensure his surplus forecasts can be met. That poses problems of Dr Cullen's making.
When the Finance Minister decided to front-load, or bring forward, extra Government spending programmes into the first Budget of the Coalition's three-year term, instead of keeping to his original fiscal timetable, he came under criticism for failing to exercise fiscal prudence.
Dr Cullen scoffed at his critics then, saying growth was robust. But all the signs are that the New Zealand economy is now back again on the 1990s type rollercoaster cycle that Dr Cullen claimed in May was over.
Back then he said: "The growth we are experiencing is broader-based, with stronger contributions from investment and exporting, and is less dependent on debt-funded private consumption. It is less inflationary because the wider geographical and sectoral composition is putting less pressure on scarce resources."
Since then the economic outlook has sharpened. The charm offensive was too little, too late.
You do not have to be a brainiac to deduce from the collapsing growth rate and the resurgence of inflationary pressures that the tightening economic conditions will inevitably impact on New Zealand's employment prospects.
So, too, will it become difficult for Labour to meet the expectations that it will "Close the Gaps" during its time in Government.
When that happens you can bet on one sure thing: many in Labour's support base will not have any difficulty in answering "Who Killed Cock Robin?"
<i>O'Sullivan:</i> Who killed the Cock Robin economy?
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