March 19, 2026 • 27 mins
Yesterday, Stats NZ released New Zealand’s GDP performance for the last quarter of 2025, and the government tells us things are looking good with gross domestic product rising 0.2 percent.
But the Reserve Bank had forecast growth of 0.5% - so while the latest results show we’re heading in the right direction, are we travelling fast enough?
Today on the Front Page, NZ Herald Business Editor at Large, Liam Dann, joins us to explain what the latest results mean and how the conflict in the Middle East might impact the next chapter of our economic story.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host/Producer: Jane Yee
Editor/Producer: Richard Martin
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Calder.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Janee in for Chelsea Daniels and this is the
Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yesterday, stats ENZ released.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
New Zealand's GDP performance for the last quarter of twenty
twenty five, and the government tells us things are looking
pretty rosy, with gross domestic product rising point two percent,
but the Reserve bankert forecast growth of point five percent.
So while the latest results show we're heading in the
right direction, are we traveling there fast enough?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Today?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
On the Front Page, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at
Large Liam Dan joins us to explain what the latest
results mean and how the conflict in the Middle East
might impact the next.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Chapter of our economic story.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Liam, what's the significance of these GDP announcements, Like what
does it mean for the everyday New Zealander.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, they're really just like a kind of a scorecard
in some respects, Like, you know, is the economy and
then they tell us are we moving forward or not?
You know, there's a whole bunch of things that are
wrong with GDP and people point them out all the time,
you know, the things that doesn't measure, but essentially it's
just how much got made and produced by the economy
of a certain period. It doesn't necessarily translate to how
(01:19):
rich or well or or well people are feeling at
an individual level, but it is, you know, it is
a sort of a benchmark that gets used to tell
us whether we're in recession. You know, two quarters of
negative growth GDP growth is qulled of recession. Yeah, really really,
it's just it's just a good indicator of whether we've
(01:40):
been going forward or backwards. But it is quite dated
as well, so you know, it's we're looking at the
last quarter of twenty twenty five, so it's telling us
how it was and if you didn't you either had
a good time where you didn't in the last quarter
of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
We kind of know it's already happened.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So at an individual level, we've already
through it. But you know, it is useful for economists
to get a sense of how strength was building in
the economy, or in the case of the data we've
just had, how it wasn't building unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So it's a single figure. What is it actually measuring?
What does it tell us?
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Yeah, it's it's output.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
It's the number of widgets that got made in the economy,
and every dollar spent, every transaction, everything that's bought and sold,
basically that we can count, so all commercial activity, I
guess you'd say, in the economy. And so that's been
criticized in the past because it doesn't put a value
on work that's done on the home, work that's done
(02:39):
on a charity basis, all that sort of stuff. But
you know, you've got to you've got to count things
and have a sort of a benchmark to work from.
You know, if we want our factories and our economy
to produce more, to create more wealth, it's good to
know how much it had produced up to a certain point.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But it doesn't count a lot of the nuance.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
As you say, is there a better way or is
this just like it's as good as it gets.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Well, that's debated.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
You know, there's been attempts to measure, you know, to
come up with sort of well being measures and try
and measure how.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
People are doing.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Look, there's a whole range of economic data that you
can use to create a more sort of deeper, richer
sort of picture of what's going on in economy. In
an economy and I've argued in the past that we're
too focused on just GDP because we really respond to
a recession headline. But I think there isn't kind of
(03:41):
a replacement. You know, it gets the more you add
to it, the more complex it gets, and the more
nuanced it becomes, and it gets away from that absolute
sort of here's the score sheet, and people like that.
Whether we like it or not, it seems to be,
you know, what people respond to. So you know, as
someone who covers the economy, I can't just say, oh,
(04:02):
I'm not going to cover it this month or this
this quarter.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Let's not worry about it. No, because it's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It gets attention and not everyone's an economist, you know.
So it's the one thing we can kind of understand,
is it going up? Is it going down?
Speaker 4 (04:14):
And play how much down or sideways?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Sometimes, So let's talk about the result. It was. It
was a positive, it was a growth, it was a
growth of Yeah, it.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Was growth, and it's better to go to grow than shrink.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Of course it is, but talk about that growth.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It was the Reserve Bank and forecast growth of zero
point five percent. Economists were slightly less optimistic, ranging from
about point two to zero point four percent. Firstly, I
want to know what were you forecasting, what were you predicting?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I feel like cow internal optimists.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, yeah, I would have liked to have seen it
at the zero point four with the you know, some
of the other more optimistic economists. I felt like we
were starting to get some momentum going. And you know,
you've got a simple equation in New Zealand. You've got
really strong dairy export prices and meat export prices, and
so that's boosting. It brings money into the country, and
(05:06):
then you've got interest rates coming down lower and in
days gone by, that was enough for an economic boom.
So I was hopeful it would be stronger. I didn't
think it'll be a boom, but it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
That it was.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
It was pretty tepid growth really, given that we'd had
had much stronger growth the quarter before and this. You know,
people like to do a per capita GDP, you know,
because if you've got a lot of population growth, that
can flatter the overall top line GDP number. We haven't
had masses of immigration, but still, you only it was
(05:40):
flat per capita because of there was there was you know,
more people coming in, so you know, when you average
it out for each individual person, GDP was was pretty
much flat on that second quarter. So that's not a
fantastic result, especially going into the kind of year we're
in now.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, exactly. So this is, as you mentioned, it's sort
of it's a little bit old news. It's nice to
look at. It's nice to get a big, top line
picture of what was happening in the direction we were
heading in late last year.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
But of course now there's a war.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, I mean, and i've sort of
i mean, all the data we're getting now up and
you know, we're getting February data through, so it's sort
of all just up to the time that the oil
shock started. But you know, we're looking at how resilient
the economy was at that point to give us a
sense of, you know, what it looks like going forward.
So if things would been you know, if things are
(06:31):
really strong and there's a lot of growth, then there's
room for that growth to come down without heading into recession.
If we were already in recession, that would be a worry.
So stronger is better, even when we're looking a time
before that oil shock hit.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And the Finance Minister, of course, is celebrating the growth,
saying that we are in a stronger position because of
it to face what's coming down the line with the
impact of them. It was quite a short press release,
I thought it was then through the first half obviously
focused on the growth and what a great position we're
(07:07):
in and this is coming out of out of the
Finance Minister's office. The second half really concentrated on the
potential impact of the conflict in the Middle East. Do
you think that there is a little bit of groundwork
being laid with this sort of messaging around managing our expectations.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think, and this is something I've
talking to colleagues in the gallery. There's a feeling that
that that press release, that that press conference yesterday was
meant to be a bit more celebratory about GDP. I'm
sure the government would have liked to see the stronger
number and could have would have talked about it more
had that been the case. It wasn't, so they switched
(07:48):
quite quickly to the crisis in front of them, which
is fair enough. They've got a lot to deal with,
but you know, that's an ongoing thing. You know, from
a political point of view. You know, if the economy
isn't going to liver for them, then they've got to
really show great leadership and make us all feel secure
and confident that they are the people will get us
through this crisis. And so that probably is where the
(08:10):
way they strategically moved yesterday when that data came through
and it just wasn't what they wanted to see.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I would say, do you think that the public sort
of feels reassured by the messaging that's coming out out
of the government.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
It's very, very difficult, and I hesitate to say that.
I think Nikola Willis is doing a really good job.
She seems to be taking the lead. But they have to,
you know, and everybody's got a different appetite for how
worried they tend to feel emotively or you know, how
pessimistic or optimistic they are. The government has to make
it very clear that they're preparing for a worst case
(08:44):
scenario without wanting to go into gory details about the
worst case scenario, because that panics people. You know, I
think people have a very emotive fear of petrol running
out and queuing at gas stations and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
All petrol stations say it's hard to get past that.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
While there's this big uncertainty in the next few weeks,
I don't think that really is going to be the
big issue long term. I think there's enough oil in
the world, there's logistical problems moving it around the world
that may come to a crunch for a few weeks while,
you know, and then longer term, either the war will
will pass or if it didn't, if you know, if
(09:21):
there was a worst case scenario where the straight Straight
of hor Moos didn't open, then the world would find
a way to shift that oil around in the longer term. So,
you know, I don't think it's that kind of like
back to Mad Max kind of scenario which people immediately
think of and having to you know, fight, you know,
fill up Jerry cans and fight for fight for petrol.
(09:45):
The issue is probably more acute around the pricing. And again,
while it feels really bad at an individual level we're
filling up the car, it's it's it's more likely to
be an issue around things like diesel, which is the
transport costs for all our food and everything we buy,
and that means it feeds into overall inflation. In the economy,
(10:07):
and that's really bad news because it's already you know,
we've already got quite high inflation, and so it sort
of puts a real squeeze on the recovery that we
were looking for, you know, in the longer term, and
that's probably what's unavoidable, and somehow we're going to have
to manage.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Our way through.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
We acknowledge that these price increases are impacting every New Zealander,
but it would be at this point irresponsible for us
to help every New Zealander because New Zealand still faces
two key issues. One, if the government spends too much
right now, we will lead to higher inflation and more
price surges across the economy, which could lead us into
(10:53):
a vicious spiral. The second issue is that we are
now looking at a far more unstable world and what
it means, and you can see already in financial markets,
is that the price of borrowing internationally is already increasing.
New Zealand as a small country.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Nichola Willis has said that, you know, all signs so
far indicate that we're in a pretty good position in
terms of the impact of the conflict on the economy.
Of course, with the caveat that it depends on what
sort of level of disruption it eventuates and the duration
of it. So it's a little bit like, yes, we're
(11:33):
standing okay, but we can't really tell you.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
It's very hard to take reassurance from that.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And as you talk about the prices at the pump,
it just feels like blow after blow after blow, just
when we were maybe seeing some signs of you know,
green shreet.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yeah, it's a big psychological blow in terms of for
New Zealand as a whole. You know that the COVID thing,
and then you know the inflation coming out of it,
and then it was always a risk. You take a
long time to have a recovery and get the economy
into a stable position and the next thing comes along. Well,
the next thing has come along. In some ways, it's
(12:07):
a test of national character. We have to really, you know,
because you don't have a choice. This is the world
we're in and you can make it better or you
can make it worse with the decisions that are made.
It's you know, we've just had this COVID inquiry. I
think there is there is good evidence in that that
we made the long term economic situation worse by over,
(12:30):
you know, like we you know, we never had a
pandemic before, but the predictions in the forecast were far
more catastrophic than what actually emerged. The economy ran okay
even you know, when something which we're not even anywhere
near yet with the idea that we all stay home
shut everything down, you know, that kind of absolutely huge disruption,
(12:51):
we were still able to keep the economy running and
running quite well. So I think it's important that we
don't catastrophize. And I've been reassured by Nikola are sort
of just stepping back from rushing in with pouring and
government money that we don't have. She may look at
some targeted support for people who are really really struggling
and can't find other ways to get to work and
(13:13):
all that sort of stuff, and making sure that all
our essential services are working. But we just don't have
a lot of money after COVID to sort of pour
in the way we did. And I think you'll see
a similar sort of response from the Reserve Bank, just
kind of breathing and looking through it for a while,
because it's just there's a risk in reacting too quickly
(13:35):
to something that and then therefore doing more damage. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, so it's not really a case of the government
and not going to step in. It's just that they're saying,
hang on, it's just take stock, see how things go
as the set day upon day and kind of go
from there, right.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah, and just trying to manage the concern of the public.
That is very natural. I feel it's a motive you
kind of extrapolate to what happens if, what happens if
and you know, like the media love us, of course,
but you know the commentators who there's always a worst
case scenario. So people say, you know, Treasury had a
(14:13):
worst case scenario that Nicola willis referred to, that had
inflation going to three point seven percent, and people were
very quick to say, all, that doesn't sound like a
worst case scenario, and there could be a worst case
scenario than that, And yeah, there could be, but there
always could be.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
We could always go one better.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
We could always say, oh, oil oil could go to
two hundred dollars us of barrel and petrol could go
to four dollars, Well, then why not just go for
three hundred dollars a barrel and five dollars a later.
You know, there's not much point in speculating to the
point that it just all becomes sort of you know,
super gloomy.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, and potentially scaremongering.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Right Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
At the same time, you know, you want to have
kind of a seat a realistic you need to have
some plans in place, I guess even on an vidual level,
for Okay, hopefully the worst doesn't happen. If it does happen, though,
I need to make sure that me and my family
are all sorted and that we can cover all our
costs because people are living week to week. Yeah, petrol
(15:12):
prices do make a big difference. So on that individual level,
you know, what would you say to like an individual
listener or viewer right now.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, I think think about fuel consumption and it's looking
for anywhere that you can save because that works collectively
as well. So collectively we could save a lot of
you know, basically a lot of a petrol consumption as
a society if we if we cut down on non
essential trips, the one that I keep hearing about because
(15:44):
you know, we immediately went to Carlos Days with the
discussion and they were terrible. I've had a reader, you know,
contact me this week just making the point and actually
giving me all the maths and the physics of it,
which was quite good. But you know, speed at which
we drive, you know, and the government could and they
did during that crunch in the late seventies drop the
(16:04):
speed speed limits. So if you drop, use an exponentially
larger amount of fuel between eighty and one hundred than
what you get out of it in terms of how
much extra speed you get, you know, So driving slower
and just all these things, they're just little measures to
reduce fuel consumption that add up across a whole population.
(16:25):
I guess, yeah. But on an individual level, it's tough
if you've got no other choices. But if you've got choices,
I would say, you know, just really consider how much
you're using, how you can get around it, where public
transport might work, you know, or just trips you don't
have to make, or car pooling that sort of thing.
Maybe we do need to look at going back to
working from home a bit more, where possible, and where
(16:47):
workplaces are open to it. I don't think it's a
sort of hard and fast, you know, we're locking down scenario,
But you know, just a day a week or something
would make a difference At this point, it's just slowing
the amount the rate at which we're getting through. All
good for your own household budget and good for the
nation as we sort of try and manage our way
through what looks like the next next, you know, curious
(17:10):
next few weeks is we just don't know. It's a
situation we haven't seen before in terms of, you know what,
how much oil is going to get through.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
It's a real economy a scale thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Those individuals will a team of five million you could say, yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
All those slogans. Probably, I don't know. It's a hard one.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
But but but leadership is important at that point, and
I think so the government has talked about going to
you know, the next step would be some sort of
public information campaign along those lines. I guess there's no
reason why they couldn't start that now except maybe just
not wanting to panic people. So you've got to you've
(17:49):
got to walk that line between not panicking people. You know,
the petrol is in the country at the moment, we
don't We're not assuming that there's not going to be
petrol in the country. That maybe a need for some
sort of reduction of consumption and that's where they would
have to make that call.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I mean, the economy has always been a strength of Nationals,
their positioning, their work on the economy. It's been a
pretty rough term for them in terms of how things
have gone. Do you think they're still protecting their ground
as they should be? Do you think that they're you know.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Well, it's tough. I mean, it's certainly.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
I mean, I'd say it's probably contested by labor as
to whether National is as strong as it's their job,
but is certainly their brand. You know, they've talked about growth, growth, growth,
and now that growth is looking pretty pretty fragile. I think,
you know it is. It is worrying that the growth
was so weak in that fourth quarter. There's just areas
(18:47):
where the economy isn't firing. That seemed to be to
do with confidence and a sense of, you know, trust
that people can get on with investing. And that's really
where Christopher Luxen talked even in opposition, about bringing the
mojo back, and that's where I think it is his
job to deliver and I think that's where it's been
(19:09):
falling short.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Well, do you think our mojo is at the moment
on a scale of one to ten deformation.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, well, I just don't think it was just creeping back.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, it's probably about pretty yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not
sure we've ever been a really hugely mojo based nation anyway.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
To be honest.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
But I'm curious about your mojo though, Lamb, because you
you know, as I mentioned earlier, you are our eternal optimist.
You'll come in here, we'll get bad news after bad news,
you'll say, I have hope. I have hope.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Yeah, you're getting out of hope.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Well, yeah, I always have hoped that things keep going.
I mean, you know, in New Zealand, I mean you
can get quite catastrophic. I grew up in the eighties
when we were all worried about Nuclear War one all
that sort of stuff, and you're like, well, we've got
food we grow and produce an export food and there's
a demand for that around the world. That money's going
(20:04):
to keep coming in. New Zealand has a strong degree
of social cohesion, and you know, things work. I'm pretty
optimistic too that this is not a COVID scenario, that
this is a shorter term thing than that, because in
the end, I did think that We're in a situation
(20:26):
where Donald Trump could just declear victory when it started
to look bad in the polls in the States, and
may still do so and then just back off. But
it's got a bit more complicated than that. He's claimed
he's wiped out one hundred percent of Iran's navy and
air force, and there's a saw a line on the
Economist the other day. They're doing pretty well with the
other zero percent because they're still they're still heading targets
(20:47):
and causing problems. So he's made some big claims they
aren't true. Iran has a say and when this war ends,
and so it has to be negotiated at this point, and.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
He has an unpredictable fellow, well doesn't he. You really
never really know what tomorrow is going to bring.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
No, but he is, you know, to this point, he's
been rained in by markets. Equity markets and bond markets
have tended to rain them in more than anything. And
actually they've held up that they're down, but they've held
up better than you might have thought. He's you know
that the more serious US economic problems that will come
(21:24):
from this take longer to flow through, so he may
be still sticking to his original four or five week
time frame something like that. You know, look, if it's
resolved in a few weeks, we still have this problem
of all that supply shop inflation flowing through, so it's
still going to be an issue for the economy. But
it's hard to see how an air war like this
(21:45):
just carries on for a whole for a year or
becomes It's not like troops on the ground.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It's self limiting in a way.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I mean, I'm not an expert on the geopolitics, but
that that stuff keeps me reasonably optimistic. He's limited, Yeah,
in terms of how much the US domestic politics will
will tolerate and his approval rating. I think he would
want to have the whole thing done, dusted and through
this curve of higher oil prices well before the US
(22:13):
midterms get in too serious gear. So you know, those
politics in the States have got to be a factor.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah, he also needs to think about the ballroom. How's
that going?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You know?
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Yeah, we didn't have a good dates on the ballroom.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
We've lost focus on all sorts of wild and crazy
things that are happening in the States.
Speaker 6 (22:37):
This morning, I received a briefing from the ministers and
the officials on our situation in the Middle East. The
extent of the impact and the conflict on our economy
will depend on its duration and intensity. Obviously we're already
seeing higher petrol prices and it's understandable that Kiwis will
be concerned about the pressure on their household budgets. And
as our fuel stocks updated yesterday, New Zealand has sufficient
(22:58):
fuel supplies. But I do want to be straight with
New Zealanders. Things could get worse before they actually.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Get better, just a little bit closer to home, and
playing devil's advocate a little bit, you know, was obviously
extremely disruptive, it's terrible, it's not great for the economy anywhere.
But is it potentially a timey, little nice scapegoat for
(23:23):
the national government in terms of you know, things potentially
not being so great on the economic front and being
able to go that's why Yeah, well.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
I mean after that GDP result, i'd say more so
than I had thought. But that does put the onus
on them to really to deliver on the leadership and
you know that has to really resonate with the public.
And obviously, you know, it was a game of two
halves COVID. We saw huge success with the Labor government
and just under I do just absolutely hitting the mark
(23:54):
and winning an election outright and all that sort of stuff.
And then on the other side, you know, collapse of confidence.
So you know, a crisis can be good for a
political for political leaders if they if they manage it well,
it remains to be seen. We you know, we're in
a situation where it is the coming weeks, the next
you know, I would say the next month that are
(24:15):
going to be a real crunch point.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
It's going to be a really interesting election year, that's
for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
And you know, I can't help but think that all
of this news coming into it because this is today's story.
Tomorrow there'll be some other story rolling out, moving pretty fast.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
They're moving feasts as well, like you know, they'll have
to reassess them and reassess them of something else, something
else bad happens or but like you know, to me,
even oil markets are relatively reassuring at the moment as
we speak. You know, on Friday afternoon, oils trading at
about one hundred and one hundred and seven U S
dollars dollars a barrel. You know, I've seen scary headlines
(24:51):
about it going to two hundred dollars a barrel, Well,
you know what what would cause it to almost double
because the people doing the trading, with all the analysis
and everything, they can see all the risk, you know
that they can price in. You know what is what
are the worst case, worst case scenarios straight off hor
moos just doesn't open again. There's a sort of a
(25:12):
you know, a stand off there that has never resolved.
You know, more strikes on or refineries. We've had that
this week.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
So are they already kind of including there in their
kind of their pricing.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I think, you know, the.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Center jods odds on it, and then that will move.
And so I'm not saying you couldn't see oil prices
rise further. But what we've seen when bad things happen
is that they've spiked up to one hundred and twelve
hundred and nineteen. It would take an almighty doozy of
something bad happening to get it up to two hundred.
You know, the difficulty of being optimist is you can
never say never. You not say, oh, look it's all
(25:47):
going to be fine. But I'm looking at them thinking, gee,
given the amount of risk, that we're aware of.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
This is the.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
You know, they're non unknowns, you know, so the unknown
unknowns and nonnowns. To some extent, this war.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Was an unknown unknown. It wasn't on anyone, you know,
it could have been.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
There's reasons why you could see see a possibility of
an a war of the run, but what's happened at the
scale wasn't really on anyone's been go card. But at
this point we know what's happened, we can see what
could go wrong from here, and you can sort of
price that in to some extent, you know. And so
I think that's why I just, you know, become obsessive
watching markets and watching how far they go on bad news,
(26:30):
how far they come back on on what is usually
Donald Trump saying something more positive. But yeah, and at
the moment they aren't catastrophic. The price thing isn't catastrophic.
I'm a little nervous like everyone about supply and the
tankers reaching, you know, getting through to South Korea and
Singapore and getting refined and them selling it to us
(26:51):
and US having enough for those for those tight few weeks.
But yeah, otherwise I remain reasonably optimistic.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I'm pleased to hear that you haven't been trodden down
completely just yet Liam, And hopefully next time we have
you on the show, we'll have some more good news,
maybe bigger good news than point.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
It's always a bad sign when you're getting me in regularly.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
This is just one, as we said, one of the
many stories that we'll be rolling up. We're following your
coverage very closely.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Thank you very much, Liam.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Dav for joining us.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at inzidherld dot co dot inzet. This episode of the
Front Page was hosted and produced by me jane Ye Caine.
Dicky is our studio operator, and Richard Martin is our
producer and editor. Follow the Front Page on the iHeart
app or wherever you get your podcasts, and join us
(27:47):
next time for another look beyond the headlines.
Calder.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Janee in for Chelsea Daniels and this is the
Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yesterday, stats ENZ released.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
New Zealand's GDP performance for the last quarter of twenty
twenty five, and the government tells us things are looking
pretty rosy, with gross domestic product rising point two percent,
but the Reserve bankert forecast growth of point five percent.
So while the latest results show we're heading in the
right direction, are we traveling there fast enough?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Today?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
On the Front Page, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at
Large Liam Dan joins us to explain what the latest
results mean and how the conflict in the Middle East
might impact the next.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Chapter of our economic story.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Liam, what's the significance of these GDP announcements, Like what
does it mean for the everyday New Zealander.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, they're really just like a kind of a scorecard
in some respects, Like, you know, is the economy and
then they tell us are we moving forward or not?
You know, there's a whole bunch of things that are
wrong with GDP and people point them out all the time,
you know, the things that doesn't measure, but essentially it's
just how much got made and produced by the economy
of a certain period. It doesn't necessarily translate to how
(01:19):
rich or well or or well people are feeling at
an individual level, but it is, you know, it is
a sort of a benchmark that gets used to tell
us whether we're in recession. You know, two quarters of
negative growth GDP growth is qulled of recession. Yeah, really really,
it's just it's just a good indicator of whether we've
(01:40):
been going forward or backwards. But it is quite dated
as well, so you know, it's we're looking at the
last quarter of twenty twenty five, so it's telling us
how it was and if you didn't you either had
a good time where you didn't in the last quarter
of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
We kind of know it's already happened.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So at an individual level, we've already
through it. But you know, it is useful for economists
to get a sense of how strength was building in
the economy, or in the case of the data we've
just had, how it wasn't building unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So it's a single figure. What is it actually measuring?
What does it tell us?
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Yeah, it's it's output.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
It's the number of widgets that got made in the economy,
and every dollar spent, every transaction, everything that's bought and sold,
basically that we can count, so all commercial activity, I
guess you'd say, in the economy. And so that's been
criticized in the past because it doesn't put a value
on work that's done on the home, work that's done
(02:39):
on a charity basis, all that sort of stuff. But
you know, you've got to you've got to count things
and have a sort of a benchmark to work from.
You know, if we want our factories and our economy
to produce more, to create more wealth, it's good to
know how much it had produced up to a certain point.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But it doesn't count a lot of the nuance.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
As you say, is there a better way or is
this just like it's as good as it gets.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Well, that's debated.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
You know, there's been attempts to measure, you know, to
come up with sort of well being measures and try
and measure how.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
People are doing.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Look, there's a whole range of economic data that you
can use to create a more sort of deeper, richer
sort of picture of what's going on in economy. In
an economy and I've argued in the past that we're
too focused on just GDP because we really respond to
a recession headline. But I think there isn't kind of
(03:41):
a replacement. You know, it gets the more you add
to it, the more complex it gets, and the more
nuanced it becomes, and it gets away from that absolute
sort of here's the score sheet, and people like that.
Whether we like it or not, it seems to be,
you know, what people respond to. So you know, as
someone who covers the economy, I can't just say, oh,
(04:02):
I'm not going to cover it this month or this
this quarter.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Let's not worry about it. No, because it's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It gets attention and not everyone's an economist, you know.
So it's the one thing we can kind of understand,
is it going up? Is it going down?
Speaker 4 (04:14):
And play how much down or sideways?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Sometimes, So let's talk about the result. It was. It
was a positive, it was a growth, it was a
growth of Yeah, it.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Was growth, and it's better to go to grow than shrink.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Of course it is, but talk about that growth.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It was the Reserve Bank and forecast growth of zero
point five percent. Economists were slightly less optimistic, ranging from
about point two to zero point four percent. Firstly, I
want to know what were you forecasting, what were you predicting?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I feel like cow internal optimists.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, yeah, I would have liked to have seen it
at the zero point four with the you know, some
of the other more optimistic economists. I felt like we
were starting to get some momentum going. And you know,
you've got a simple equation in New Zealand. You've got
really strong dairy export prices and meat export prices, and
so that's boosting. It brings money into the country, and
(05:06):
then you've got interest rates coming down lower and in
days gone by, that was enough for an economic boom.
So I was hopeful it would be stronger. I didn't
think it'll be a boom, but it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
That it was.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
It was pretty tepid growth really, given that we'd had
had much stronger growth the quarter before and this. You know,
people like to do a per capita GDP, you know,
because if you've got a lot of population growth, that
can flatter the overall top line GDP number. We haven't
had masses of immigration, but still, you only it was
(05:40):
flat per capita because of there was there was you know,
more people coming in, so you know, when you average
it out for each individual person, GDP was was pretty
much flat on that second quarter. So that's not a
fantastic result, especially going into the kind of year we're
in now.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, exactly. So this is, as you mentioned, it's sort
of it's a little bit old news. It's nice to
look at. It's nice to get a big, top line
picture of what was happening in the direction we were
heading in late last year.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
But of course now there's a war.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, I mean, and i've sort of
i mean, all the data we're getting now up and
you know, we're getting February data through, so it's sort
of all just up to the time that the oil
shock started. But you know, we're looking at how resilient
the economy was at that point to give us a
sense of, you know, what it looks like going forward.
So if things would been you know, if things are
(06:31):
really strong and there's a lot of growth, then there's
room for that growth to come down without heading into recession.
If we were already in recession, that would be a worry.
So stronger is better, even when we're looking a time
before that oil shock hit.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And the Finance Minister, of course, is celebrating the growth,
saying that we are in a stronger position because of
it to face what's coming down the line with the
impact of them. It was quite a short press release,
I thought it was then through the first half obviously
focused on the growth and what a great position we're
(07:07):
in and this is coming out of out of the
Finance Minister's office. The second half really concentrated on the
potential impact of the conflict in the Middle East. Do
you think that there is a little bit of groundwork
being laid with this sort of messaging around managing our expectations.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think, and this is something I've
talking to colleagues in the gallery. There's a feeling that
that that press release, that that press conference yesterday was
meant to be a bit more celebratory about GDP. I'm
sure the government would have liked to see the stronger
number and could have would have talked about it more
had that been the case. It wasn't, so they switched
(07:48):
quite quickly to the crisis in front of them, which
is fair enough. They've got a lot to deal with,
but you know, that's an ongoing thing. You know, from
a political point of view. You know, if the economy
isn't going to liver for them, then they've got to
really show great leadership and make us all feel secure
and confident that they are the people will get us
through this crisis. And so that probably is where the
(08:10):
way they strategically moved yesterday when that data came through
and it just wasn't what they wanted to see.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I would say, do you think that the public sort
of feels reassured by the messaging that's coming out out
of the government.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
It's very, very difficult, and I hesitate to say that.
I think Nikola Willis is doing a really good job.
She seems to be taking the lead. But they have to,
you know, and everybody's got a different appetite for how
worried they tend to feel emotively or you know, how
pessimistic or optimistic they are. The government has to make
it very clear that they're preparing for a worst case
(08:44):
scenario without wanting to go into gory details about the
worst case scenario, because that panics people. You know, I
think people have a very emotive fear of petrol running
out and queuing at gas stations and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
All petrol stations say it's hard to get past that.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
While there's this big uncertainty in the next few weeks,
I don't think that really is going to be the
big issue long term. I think there's enough oil in
the world, there's logistical problems moving it around the world
that may come to a crunch for a few weeks while,
you know, and then longer term, either the war will
will pass or if it didn't, if you know, if
(09:21):
there was a worst case scenario where the straight Straight
of hor Moos didn't open, then the world would find
a way to shift that oil around in the longer term. So,
you know, I don't think it's that kind of like
back to Mad Max kind of scenario which people immediately
think of and having to you know, fight, you know,
fill up Jerry cans and fight for fight for petrol.
(09:45):
The issue is probably more acute around the pricing. And again,
while it feels really bad at an individual level we're
filling up the car, it's it's it's more likely to
be an issue around things like diesel, which is the
transport costs for all our food and everything we buy,
and that means it feeds into overall inflation. In the economy,
(10:07):
and that's really bad news because it's already you know,
we've already got quite high inflation, and so it sort
of puts a real squeeze on the recovery that we
were looking for, you know, in the longer term, and
that's probably what's unavoidable, and somehow we're going to have
to manage.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Our way through.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
We acknowledge that these price increases are impacting every New Zealander,
but it would be at this point irresponsible for us
to help every New Zealander because New Zealand still faces
two key issues. One, if the government spends too much
right now, we will lead to higher inflation and more
price surges across the economy, which could lead us into
(10:53):
a vicious spiral. The second issue is that we are
now looking at a far more unstable world and what
it means, and you can see already in financial markets,
is that the price of borrowing internationally is already increasing.
New Zealand as a small country.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Nichola Willis has said that, you know, all signs so
far indicate that we're in a pretty good position in
terms of the impact of the conflict on the economy.
Of course, with the caveat that it depends on what
sort of level of disruption it eventuates and the duration
of it. So it's a little bit like, yes, we're
(11:33):
standing okay, but we can't really tell you.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
It's very hard to take reassurance from that.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And as you talk about the prices at the pump,
it just feels like blow after blow after blow, just
when we were maybe seeing some signs of you know,
green shreet.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yeah, it's a big psychological blow in terms of for
New Zealand as a whole. You know that the COVID thing,
and then you know the inflation coming out of it,
and then it was always a risk. You take a
long time to have a recovery and get the economy
into a stable position and the next thing comes along. Well,
the next thing has come along. In some ways, it's
(12:07):
a test of national character. We have to really, you know,
because you don't have a choice. This is the world
we're in and you can make it better or you
can make it worse with the decisions that are made.
It's you know, we've just had this COVID inquiry. I
think there is there is good evidence in that that
we made the long term economic situation worse by over,
(12:30):
you know, like we you know, we never had a
pandemic before, but the predictions in the forecast were far
more catastrophic than what actually emerged. The economy ran okay
even you know, when something which we're not even anywhere
near yet with the idea that we all stay home
shut everything down, you know, that kind of absolutely huge disruption,
(12:51):
we were still able to keep the economy running and
running quite well. So I think it's important that we
don't catastrophize. And I've been reassured by Nikola are sort
of just stepping back from rushing in with pouring and
government money that we don't have. She may look at
some targeted support for people who are really really struggling
and can't find other ways to get to work and
(13:13):
all that sort of stuff, and making sure that all
our essential services are working. But we just don't have
a lot of money after COVID to sort of pour
in the way we did. And I think you'll see
a similar sort of response from the Reserve Bank, just
kind of breathing and looking through it for a while,
because it's just there's a risk in reacting too quickly
(13:35):
to something that and then therefore doing more damage. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, so it's not really a case of the government
and not going to step in. It's just that they're saying,
hang on, it's just take stock, see how things go
as the set day upon day and kind of go
from there, right.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah, and just trying to manage the concern of the public.
That is very natural. I feel it's a motive you
kind of extrapolate to what happens if, what happens if
and you know, like the media love us, of course,
but you know the commentators who there's always a worst
case scenario. So people say, you know, Treasury had a
(14:13):
worst case scenario that Nicola willis referred to, that had
inflation going to three point seven percent, and people were
very quick to say, all, that doesn't sound like a
worst case scenario, and there could be a worst case
scenario than that, And yeah, there could be, but there
always could be.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
We could always go one better.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
We could always say, oh, oil oil could go to
two hundred dollars us of barrel and petrol could go
to four dollars, Well, then why not just go for
three hundred dollars a barrel and five dollars a later.
You know, there's not much point in speculating to the
point that it just all becomes sort of you know,
super gloomy.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, and potentially scaremongering.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Right Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
At the same time, you know, you want to have
kind of a seat a realistic you need to have
some plans in place, I guess even on an vidual level,
for Okay, hopefully the worst doesn't happen. If it does happen, though,
I need to make sure that me and my family
are all sorted and that we can cover all our
costs because people are living week to week. Yeah, petrol
(15:12):
prices do make a big difference. So on that individual level,
you know, what would you say to like an individual
listener or viewer right now.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, I think think about fuel consumption and it's looking
for anywhere that you can save because that works collectively
as well. So collectively we could save a lot of
you know, basically a lot of a petrol consumption as
a society if we if we cut down on non
essential trips, the one that I keep hearing about because
(15:44):
you know, we immediately went to Carlos Days with the
discussion and they were terrible. I've had a reader, you know,
contact me this week just making the point and actually
giving me all the maths and the physics of it,
which was quite good. But you know, speed at which
we drive, you know, and the government could and they
did during that crunch in the late seventies drop the
(16:04):
speed speed limits. So if you drop, use an exponentially
larger amount of fuel between eighty and one hundred than
what you get out of it in terms of how
much extra speed you get, you know, So driving slower
and just all these things, they're just little measures to
reduce fuel consumption that add up across a whole population.
(16:25):
I guess, yeah. But on an individual level, it's tough
if you've got no other choices. But if you've got choices,
I would say, you know, just really consider how much
you're using, how you can get around it, where public
transport might work, you know, or just trips you don't
have to make, or car pooling that sort of thing.
Maybe we do need to look at going back to
working from home a bit more, where possible, and where
(16:47):
workplaces are open to it. I don't think it's a
sort of hard and fast, you know, we're locking down scenario,
But you know, just a day a week or something
would make a difference At this point, it's just slowing
the amount the rate at which we're getting through. All
good for your own household budget and good for the
nation as we sort of try and manage our way
through what looks like the next next, you know, curious
(17:10):
next few weeks is we just don't know. It's a
situation we haven't seen before in terms of, you know what,
how much oil is going to get through.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
It's a real economy a scale thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Those individuals will a team of five million you could say, yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
All those slogans. Probably, I don't know. It's a hard one.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
But but but leadership is important at that point, and
I think so the government has talked about going to
you know, the next step would be some sort of
public information campaign along those lines. I guess there's no
reason why they couldn't start that now except maybe just
not wanting to panic people. So you've got to you've
(17:49):
got to walk that line between not panicking people. You know,
the petrol is in the country at the moment, we
don't We're not assuming that there's not going to be
petrol in the country. That maybe a need for some
sort of reduction of consumption and that's where they would
have to make that call.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I mean, the economy has always been a strength of Nationals,
their positioning, their work on the economy. It's been a
pretty rough term for them in terms of how things
have gone. Do you think they're still protecting their ground
as they should be? Do you think that they're you know.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Well, it's tough. I mean, it's certainly.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
I mean, I'd say it's probably contested by labor as
to whether National is as strong as it's their job,
but is certainly their brand. You know, they've talked about growth, growth, growth,
and now that growth is looking pretty pretty fragile. I think,
you know it is. It is worrying that the growth
was so weak in that fourth quarter. There's just areas
(18:47):
where the economy isn't firing. That seemed to be to
do with confidence and a sense of, you know, trust
that people can get on with investing. And that's really
where Christopher Luxen talked even in opposition, about bringing the
mojo back, and that's where I think it is his
job to deliver and I think that's where it's been
(19:09):
falling short.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Well, do you think our mojo is at the moment
on a scale of one to ten deformation.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, well, I just don't think it was just creeping back.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, it's probably about pretty yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not
sure we've ever been a really hugely mojo based nation anyway.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
To be honest.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
But I'm curious about your mojo though, Lamb, because you
you know, as I mentioned earlier, you are our eternal optimist.
You'll come in here, we'll get bad news after bad news,
you'll say, I have hope. I have hope.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Yeah, you're getting out of hope.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Well, yeah, I always have hoped that things keep going.
I mean, you know, in New Zealand, I mean you
can get quite catastrophic. I grew up in the eighties
when we were all worried about Nuclear War one all
that sort of stuff, and you're like, well, we've got
food we grow and produce an export food and there's
a demand for that around the world. That money's going
(20:04):
to keep coming in. New Zealand has a strong degree
of social cohesion, and you know, things work. I'm pretty
optimistic too that this is not a COVID scenario, that
this is a shorter term thing than that, because in
the end, I did think that We're in a situation
(20:26):
where Donald Trump could just declear victory when it started
to look bad in the polls in the States, and
may still do so and then just back off. But
it's got a bit more complicated than that. He's claimed
he's wiped out one hundred percent of Iran's navy and
air force, and there's a saw a line on the
Economist the other day. They're doing pretty well with the
other zero percent because they're still they're still heading targets
(20:47):
and causing problems. So he's made some big claims they
aren't true. Iran has a say and when this war ends,
and so it has to be negotiated at this point, and.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
He has an unpredictable fellow, well doesn't he. You really
never really know what tomorrow is going to bring.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
No, but he is, you know, to this point, he's
been rained in by markets. Equity markets and bond markets
have tended to rain them in more than anything. And
actually they've held up that they're down, but they've held
up better than you might have thought. He's you know
that the more serious US economic problems that will come
(21:24):
from this take longer to flow through, so he may
be still sticking to his original four or five week
time frame something like that. You know, look, if it's
resolved in a few weeks, we still have this problem
of all that supply shop inflation flowing through, so it's
still going to be an issue for the economy. But
it's hard to see how an air war like this
(21:45):
just carries on for a whole for a year or
becomes It's not like troops on the ground.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It's self limiting in a way.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I mean, I'm not an expert on the geopolitics, but
that that stuff keeps me reasonably optimistic. He's limited, Yeah,
in terms of how much the US domestic politics will
will tolerate and his approval rating. I think he would
want to have the whole thing done, dusted and through
this curve of higher oil prices well before the US
(22:13):
midterms get in too serious gear. So you know, those
politics in the States have got to be a factor.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah, he also needs to think about the ballroom. How's
that going?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You know?
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Yeah, we didn't have a good dates on the ballroom.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
We've lost focus on all sorts of wild and crazy
things that are happening in the States.
Speaker 6 (22:37):
This morning, I received a briefing from the ministers and
the officials on our situation in the Middle East. The
extent of the impact and the conflict on our economy
will depend on its duration and intensity. Obviously we're already
seeing higher petrol prices and it's understandable that Kiwis will
be concerned about the pressure on their household budgets. And
as our fuel stocks updated yesterday, New Zealand has sufficient
(22:58):
fuel supplies. But I do want to be straight with
New Zealanders. Things could get worse before they actually.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Get better, just a little bit closer to home, and
playing devil's advocate a little bit, you know, was obviously
extremely disruptive, it's terrible, it's not great for the economy anywhere.
But is it potentially a timey, little nice scapegoat for
(23:23):
the national government in terms of you know, things potentially
not being so great on the economic front and being
able to go that's why Yeah, well.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
I mean after that GDP result, i'd say more so
than I had thought. But that does put the onus
on them to really to deliver on the leadership and
you know that has to really resonate with the public.
And obviously, you know, it was a game of two
halves COVID. We saw huge success with the Labor government
and just under I do just absolutely hitting the mark
(23:54):
and winning an election outright and all that sort of stuff.
And then on the other side, you know, collapse of confidence.
So you know, a crisis can be good for a
political for political leaders if they if they manage it well,
it remains to be seen. We you know, we're in
a situation where it is the coming weeks, the next
you know, I would say the next month that are
(24:15):
going to be a real crunch point.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
It's going to be a really interesting election year, that's
for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
And you know, I can't help but think that all
of this news coming into it because this is today's story.
Tomorrow there'll be some other story rolling out, moving pretty fast.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
They're moving feasts as well, like you know, they'll have
to reassess them and reassess them of something else, something
else bad happens or but like you know, to me,
even oil markets are relatively reassuring at the moment as
we speak. You know, on Friday afternoon, oils trading at
about one hundred and one hundred and seven U S
dollars dollars a barrel. You know, I've seen scary headlines
(24:51):
about it going to two hundred dollars a barrel, Well,
you know what what would cause it to almost double
because the people doing the trading, with all the analysis
and everything, they can see all the risk, you know
that they can price in. You know what is what
are the worst case, worst case scenarios straight off hor
moos just doesn't open again. There's a sort of a
(25:12):
you know, a stand off there that has never resolved.
You know, more strikes on or refineries. We've had that
this week.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
So are they already kind of including there in their
kind of their pricing.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I think, you know, the.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Center jods odds on it, and then that will move.
And so I'm not saying you couldn't see oil prices
rise further. But what we've seen when bad things happen
is that they've spiked up to one hundred and twelve
hundred and nineteen. It would take an almighty doozy of
something bad happening to get it up to two hundred.
You know, the difficulty of being optimist is you can
never say never. You not say, oh, look it's all
(25:47):
going to be fine. But I'm looking at them thinking, gee,
given the amount of risk, that we're aware of.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
This is the.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
You know, they're non unknowns, you know, so the unknown
unknowns and nonnowns. To some extent, this war.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Was an unknown unknown. It wasn't on anyone, you know,
it could have been.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
There's reasons why you could see see a possibility of
an a war of the run, but what's happened at the
scale wasn't really on anyone's been go card. But at
this point we know what's happened, we can see what
could go wrong from here, and you can sort of
price that in to some extent, you know. And so
I think that's why I just, you know, become obsessive
watching markets and watching how far they go on bad news,
(26:30):
how far they come back on on what is usually
Donald Trump saying something more positive. But yeah, and at
the moment they aren't catastrophic. The price thing isn't catastrophic.
I'm a little nervous like everyone about supply and the
tankers reaching, you know, getting through to South Korea and
Singapore and getting refined and them selling it to us
(26:51):
and US having enough for those for those tight few weeks.
But yeah, otherwise I remain reasonably optimistic.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I'm pleased to hear that you haven't been trodden down
completely just yet Liam, And hopefully next time we have
you on the show, we'll have some more good news,
maybe bigger good news than point.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
It's always a bad sign when you're getting me in regularly.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
This is just one, as we said, one of the
many stories that we'll be rolling up. We're following your
coverage very closely.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Thank you very much, Liam.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Dav for joining us.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at inzidherld dot co dot inzet. This episode of the
Front Page was hosted and produced by me jane Ye Caine.
Dicky is our studio operator, and Richard Martin is our
producer and editor. Follow the Front Page on the iHeart
app or wherever you get your podcasts, and join us
(27:47):
next time for another look beyond the headlines.
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com