The Premium Debate: Subscriber views whether the New Zealand recession needed to happen

News of the recession last week was good, not bad, writes Liam Dann. Photo / 123rf

OPINION

Liam Dann writes that New Zealand needs to harden up in relation to the recession: “News of the recession last week was good, not bad.

You’ll never hear a politician say that. They’d get slammed by the public and swamped with hard-luck stories that made them look callous and uncaring.

But I don’t care. I’ll say it. This economic slowdown shouldn’t have come as a surprise and, frankly, if the choice is whether to rebalance the economy sooner or later - I’m in favour of sooner.

It’s pretty simple. We had a pandemic and had to shut the country down to save lives. We borrowed to get through that, we lived beyond our means for three years. Now we’re going through the payback.”

Read the full story: Liam Dann: Harden up New Zealand, this was the recession we needed to have

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So we harden up after this current Government has spent billions with so little to show for it? If we had seen an immense improvement in health, education, and infrastructure, New Zealanders might feel differently.

Part of this recession is a lack of understanding from this Government on what really is important in maintaining a productive, well-functioning country through good times and bad economic times.

- Fiona T

Labour completely locked the country down, including productive industry, for longer periods than needed. It used excessive and cruel powers to control all movements into and out of the country. This, in the belief that elimination was the answer, but then unbelievably, it failed to vaccinate the nation until Delta arrived. It ignored what was working overseas.

These massive failures resulted in avoidable spending, borrowing and printing money. Then to cap it off, it used Covid-appropriated funds on other pet projects.

But it also falsely predicted that the OCR and inflation would remain in the target range. This in the full knowledge that prediction was impossible. It even encouraged a spend/borrow frenzy by councils and homebuyers. Consequently, rates are soaring, surviving businesses are playing catch up, and everyone is paying for this Government’s folly.

We need a Royal Commission.

- Walter H

The Government paid billions of dollars to keep restaurants and tourist businesses afloat, then they shut off the labour to those same businesses.

Now restaurants are closing permanently or shut for part of the week. There are no chefs. It’s so frustrating to watch an absolute train wreck.

We are all paying billions of dollars more in interest for no result because this Government keeps spending. The person who loses their job or never gets employed will be offended by the words in this piece.

- Mike D

Yes. Totally agree. People who don’t understand economics are keen to blame the Government for everything. But most of it is the situation as a result of Covid. Not only here but everywhere in the world. Everyone seems to have the same essential issues as us.

And yes the Government has made mistakes. Plenty. But I am certain if we had a National Government through this, we would largely have been in the same position.

- Ross W

Reading the comments, it is evident that no one asked for or received any money from the Covid spend.

I know folk who didn’t strictly need the cash, getting their $7k handout as fast as... people who couldn’t go to work who didn’t lose their jobs due to government wage subsidies, and some not-so-small businesses that got millions and have not all yet paid this back in those cases where they did fine.

So blaming this Government for its response at the height of the pandemic (it hasn’t ended) is armchair hindsight. I agree with the author, better to get on top of inflation ASAP.

I wonder if prices will recede once we get used to paying more for stuff. All this moaning and groaning and anger is not constructive. And with regards to the pandemic/economy, this Government managed the situation a whole lot better than other governments, in terms of the speed of decisions and the time it took to get money out the door to people. Anyone who thinks otherwise has obviously never experienced life outside of NZ.

- Betty B

We only needed to have a recession because of Labour’s big spending policies. And once again people with mortgages and those only trying to get ahead suffer because of government incompetence.

- Gary C

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