The dairy sector is the weakest in the economy and faces a second successive year of loss-making payouts. The slump is hitting Taranaki in particular because of the double whammy from lower oil prices, but the West Coast of the South Island is being hit hard, too - along with the coal price slump.
The South Island has been able to fall back on the Canterbury rebuild and the tourism boom, but could not ignore the body blow from dairy.
New Zealand's dairy production is forecast to fall 6 per cent this year and many farmers who can't rely on irrigation will be even more nervous as El Nino bites this summer.
14,500
The number of houses that needed to be built in Auckland in the past year to keep up with total population growth of 43,500, which includes around 30,000 net migrants and 13,500 of natural population growth.
That assumes three people a house. Unfortunately, Auckland only built an extra 8900 houses. That means in the past year alone its housing shortage increased by 5600.
It was already 25,000 at the beginning of the year.
This shortage is at the core of the biggest social and economic problems in New Zealand's biggest and fastest-growing city. A massive building programme would go a long way to solving the housing affordability crisis for renters and first-home buyers, and the housing poverty crisis that is the major factor in child poverty.
A surge of housing supply would make it easier for the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates further next year, given it has financial stability concerns linked to the house-price boom.
1 per cent
The amount the Reserve Bank cut the Official Cash Rate this year in response to the extended slump in dairy prices, persistently low inflation because of the high New Zealand dollar in 2014 and a big fall in oil prices.
The four cuts in the rate between June and December reversed the bank's hikes between March and July of 2014. The bank denied those hikes were a mistake, but the heat is on Governor Graeme Wheeler to lift inflation back near the bank's 2 per cent midpoint of its target range next year from just 0.4 per cent.
Fixed mortgage rates fell more than 1 per cent this year to as low as 3.99 per cent, but some economists expect rates to fall even further next year given even lower oil prices and a higher New Zealand dollar than the Reserve Bank expects.
$95,000
The increase in Auckland's median house price to $765,000 between November 2014 and November 2015. The election result's removal of the prospect of foreign buyer restrictions and a Capital Gains Tax, along with the lower interest rates and record-high net migration, unleashed a perfect storm of house-price inflation early in 2015.
By May, the price shock forced the Reserve Bank and the Government to announce a twin-pronged attack on rental property investors and non-resident buyers. Tighter rules on lending to landlords, a new two-year "bright-line" test for speculative capital gains and forcing non-residents to disclose their identities eventually cooled the Auckland housing frenzy.
The jury is out on how long it will stay cool. Net migration is still at record highs and Auckland's housing shortage grew by at least another 5000 to over 30,000.
78 per cent
The rise in spending by Chinese tourists in the year to September to $1.6 billion, which isn't that far behind dairy exports to China of $2.3b in the year to September.
Average spending by each Chinese tourist is up to $3700 per trip, which is only just behind the spending by Canadians, Americans and Europeans. Chinese tourists are much more likely to be renting cars and camper-vans and are staying 7-10 nights, rather than doing a cheap and nasty 72-hour mini-bus tour of Rotovegas souvenir shops.
Extra direct flights and a change in Chinese Government policy to discourage the cheap tours are factors, along with the much lower New Zealand dollar.
