Barry Soper: ZB senior political correspondent on New Zealand's GDP rising by 0.2 percent

New GDP data shows New Zealand's out of a technical recession - but the nation's not out of the woods just yet.

Stats NZ figures show GDP rose 0.2 percent in the three months to March, and the same amount for the year.

ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper says it's a good result for the new Government, but there's room for a bigger victory.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Very so, Sen your political correspondence with us.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Now, Hey Barry, good afternoon, Heather. So this is the
first full quarter GDP result for the government, the new government.
And as far as I mean, if you're going to
take a win, then I suppose zero two percent. There
won't be any champagne corks being popped in the beehive.
I wouldn't have thought, but at least the track is
above zero or negative. So you know, zero point two percent.

(00:26):
I mean, it's neither here nor there, statistical margin of
era of stuff. We're probably going to exactly. But I
think the thing that they'll take some heart out of,
and it comes as no surprise, it's the primary sector
that has essentially driven the GDP rate, and that's great agriculture, forestry,

(00:47):
fishing production. They all rose zero point four percent, and
I think that's pretty good. The particularly forestry. The rise
there was five point five percent if you single that
one out. The downside was construction, which obviously is slow

(01:07):
to get underway, but with the fast track measures in place,
one can only hope that that'll have a bit of
a lift. So it was down just over three percent
in the first three months of this year. It's interesting though,
isn't it when you look at GDP rates and we
were all ready at the second end of the second quarter. Now,

(01:27):
well the end of June next week we will be
and we have to wait another three months before we
know what's happening at the moment, you know. And I
think the data that comes out, STATS says it can't
do it more regularly. It is too expensive. Well I
don't know why not, but you're expensive. Well how's it.
Don't they have computers? Barry Stats can't even do the census,

(01:50):
so maybe no, they don't have computers. I'll be interested
to see what Nichola Willis says. I'm sure she's pretty realistic,
but she said that today that New Zealanders are filling
the long shadow of the prolonged period of inflation in
this country, and of course that's in the book of
Adrian or and what the Reserve Bank will be doing.

(02:12):
Don't expect to see much movement in the OCR, I
would think on that front, which is a bit unfortunate.
But I looked around the world to see what the
GDP rates were like for other countries, and you look
at the country that Chris Luxen has just left, Japan,
they're only at zero point nine percent for a year.

(02:34):
You look at Fiji, where he was recently, that's at
three percent. Australia's at one point five percent. The United States,
so they've come through COVID obviously pretty well. At two
point seven percent of non enormous economy. That sounds pretty
good to me. Well, they're above yeah, all above us. Hey,
so the American you'll be excited as a massive Trump supporter,

(02:56):
You'll be absolutely for the first presidential debate. Yeah, well,
you know, I got another email, and I've got a
couple of emails from the Republican campaign. They were telling
me this morning, this is the moment we've been waiting for.
Barry were just a few days away from President Trump,
our MAGA champion, stepping into the ring with crocod Joe Biden.

(03:16):
The debate is this time next week, and they're saying
that we all know what will happen in this debate.
President Trump will dominate, Biden will be as high as
a kite, and the fake news media will lie about
the real winners. They're pretty negative at the beginning. Yeah. Well,
judging by the performance though, I've got to say both

(03:37):
men over the past twenty four hours, you'd have to ask,
what's the world coming to? Here?

Speaker 1 (03:43):
They are, My name's Joe Biden and Joe Biden's husband,
Thanks to all the members of Congress and Homeland Security Secretary.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
I'm not sure you're going to do all the way.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, I'll kindnes side Secretary Moericus as well as Secretary Sarah.
Everybody's just here. Take a look at our inflation, our
real inflation. They said it was ten for the last
couple of years. Cumulatively, you take a look at inflation
and if you add different categories, which said, I think
our inflation is between forty and fifty percent, they say,

(04:17):
answered twenty two percent, but I think you could double it.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, well, the official inflation right in the US is
three point seven percent. Barry, Look, I know you hate Trump,
but you have to agree you'd rather take the moron
over the guy who can't talk. Well, he's more articulate,
there's no doubt about that. I'd to me to compare
those two audio. I mean, you would have to take
the moron over the guy who can't finish a sentence.

(04:42):
Come on, true that, but does he understand what's going
on in the economy clearly not does he the other
one doesn't understand anything by it sounds things geez honestly,
Joe Biden, hey quickly, So Luxin's on his way back,
playing yes, well as I understand it. It's in the
air at the moment, not flying low altitude Luxon. Of course,

(05:05):
before he left, he committed New Zealand to doing more
to defend and protect the Indo Pacific region. What New
Zealand can do, though measurably, is debatable. I mean, our
armed forces aren't great. We are, though, sending a free
it up there to monitor any transgressions to the packed

(05:26):
against North Korea. And as these two, as the Prime
Minister of Japan and our Prime minister were discussing things
a very short distance away, a short plane ride away
of course. For that Vladimir Putin was with Kim Jong
on and Poyang So they were discussing. They were discussing

(05:47):
and making a commitment that if one one is attacked,
the other will protect it. So, you know, again, like
I said, with the most powerful men in the world,
as you just heard, you know, you wonder what the
world's coming to me. It doesn't sound good.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Thank you very much, really appreciate it, very so for
senior political correspondent.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
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