As we say goodbye to 2024 and welcome in 2025, it’s a good time to catch up on the very best of some of the Herald columnists we enjoyed reading over the last 12 months. From politics to business, these are some of the voices and views our audience loved
Why so many Kiwis are leaving for Australia and its stronger economy - Liam Dann
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Is the grass really greener in Australia? Photo / Getty Images
Opinion by Liam Dann
Liam Dann, Business Editor at Large for New Zealand’s Herald, works as a writer, columnist, radio commentator and as a presenter and producer of videos and podcasts.
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“New Zealanders who leave for Australia raise the IQ of both countries,” he quipped.
Like so many great quotes, it is apocryphal, ie never officially documented. But I reckon he said it. Both because it sounds like Muldoon’s acerbic wit and, for those of us who recall the era from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, that exodus to Australia loomed so large.
As a child at the time, I remember a cartoon by Peter Bromhead depicting a queue of leavers at the airport and a sign on the wall that said: “Would the last one to leave please turn off the lights”.
It worried me then. It’s worrying me again now.
According to Stats NZ, the latest immigration figures for the year to February 2024 year saw two annual records for New Zealand citizens. There were 74,900 migrant departures, exceeding the previous record of 72,400 in the February 2012 year and net migration loss of 47,700, exceeding the 44,400 in the February 2012 year.
Most of those leaving are headed for Australia, where wages are higher although the grass (ironically) is usually browner.
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Back in the late 1970s, New Zealand had a total net migration loss of nearly 30,000 a year.
Things are different now of course. New Zealand’s population is much larger and is growing at a historically unprecedented rate. Back then we didn’t have large numbers of migrants coming in to offset the departing Kiwis.
That population growth is one of a few significant differences between the economy now and then. Read more >
Will ‘stingy’ Boomers help push interest rates lower? - June 9, 2024
Will “stingy” Baby Boomers help push interest rates lower? There’s a lot going on in that sentence, I know. But bear with me.
First of all, if you are a Boomer (a lot of Herald readers are) you might be thinking: who does this Generation X kid think he is calling me stingy?
I’m not... honestly! I wouldn’t be so rude. But the esteemed financial magazine The Economist is. It didn’t pull any punches last week with a cover story headlined: “Baby Boomers are loaded. Why are they so stingy?”
It reports that economists are struggling to get to grips with a surprising global trend.
In aggregate, the Boomer generation – born between 1946 and 1964 – is the wealthiest the world has seen.
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Economists (the boffins, not the magazine) had assumed that, in retirement, Boomers would be unleashing their wealth on the world
The Economist cites the classic model – called the “life-cycle hypothesis” – that economists use to plot spending patterns based on demographics.
Developed in the 1950s, it assumes that individuals plan their spending across their lifetimes. They take on debt when they are young, assuming future income will enable them to pay it off. Then they save during middle age to maintain their lifestyles when they retire.
In short, as The Economist puts it, “in old age, they spend more than they earn, funding their lifestyles by selling capital (such as houses) and eating into savings”.
Based on that theory, there have been all sorts of concerns and articles written about a wave of Boomer wealth being unleashed. These have included the prospect of mass selloffs of large suburban homes and rising levels of consumption pushing up inflation and driving up global interest rates.
But new research suggests it isn’t happening and the traditional model is breaking down. Read more >
Stats say Kiwis are getting wealthier - the reality is more complex - July 7, 2024
New Zealanders got wealthier in the first quarter of this year ... officially. Last week Stats NZ quietly released its National Accounts on consumer income, savings, interest payments and wealth for the first quarter of 2024.
They showed that New Zealanders’ household net wealth (as opposed to the Crown’s deteriorating position) rose by 0.3% for the quarter and is up 1.4% in the past year.
Of course, Stats NZ always puts out its data quietly, dropping it on the website and sending out press releases.
Whether the data is received quietly is another matter. We all tend to get excited about inflation, interest rates and other indicators of trends that affect our cashflow.
As a nation, we are obsessed with the weekly cost of living, at the expense of worrying about getting rich. If we paid more attention to wealth creation, we might find the cost-of-living problems take care of themselves.
We also stress a lot about the wealth of the Government. Crown debt gets people very animated. It’s easy to bash the Government but New Zealand’s real problem is high private debt and low private savings.
Surely the point of all the economic debate should be making New Zealanders wealthier. Well, it turns out we are - in aggregate. Read more >
Classic Kiwi recovery is on its way ... and it’s not good enough - October 27, 2024
Victory in the war on inflation, falling interest rates in combination with warmer weather and the impending holiday season ought to start brightening the nation’s mood in the coming weeks.
But, as always, we need to keep the optimism in perspective.
ANZ’s October Consumer Confidence survey on Friday showed the reality of the recessionary economy has somewhat dampened any jubilance about the inflation victory and lower interest rates.
Topline Consumer Confidence fell sharply after three months of improvement.
Like a marathon runner collapsing after crossing the finish line, there’s some elation. But getting the inflation win has taken a toll. Despite the Reserve Bank offering a rate-cut energy drink, the economy will have wobbly legs for a while yet. Read more >
Survive till ’25 - the new recessionary catchphrase. Should we be wary? - May 19, 2024
Survive till ‘25 ... that seems to be the mantra as businesses hunker down for what could be the toughest winter the economy has been through for more than a decade.
As mantras go it’s not a bad one, a catchphrase for recession in 2024. For starters, it rhymes. I heard it from the CEO of a large company the other day, although I imagine the notion of clinging on through the storm of high interest rates is more relevant for many small businesses and homeowners.
Survive till ‘25, next year it will all come right! Er, yeah right (as the beer commercial goes).
It does suggest that the big economic narrative, the monetary policy rebalancing we’re going through, is well understood now. People get it. This is a recession that the Reserve Bank (RBNZ) has engineered. Interest rates had to rise to beat inflation, which was killing us slowly anyway.
At some point, they’ll start to fall again and the economy can breathe again - we hope. Read more >
