Thread by @CLRenney

Ahead of tomorrow's @NZQandA Finance Debate, I thought that I should dig around for how the NZ economy is doing. A few charts here on the current state of play against the countries that we usually compare ourselves to. All data here is from the OECD, Stats NZ, and IMF.

Last quarter, our GDP growth of 0.9% was very impressive in comparison to our peers - only Japan beating us in terms of GDP growth.

When we look at the situation since COVID began (Q4 2019) the situation for GDP growth is even more marked. New Zealand has outperformed its peers quite significantly on this measure.

GDP is important - but arguably employment is even more important. Again, New Zealand can hold its head up high here. Australia and the Netherlands have just nipped ahead of us here, but we are better placed than anywhere else

Now the one everyone is talking about - inflation. It's not as good a picture as painted by GDP and employment - but also not as bad as you might think. Consumer Prices have risen 18% since COVID-19. That's not great - but also not much different to everywhere else

The picture is slightly better when it comes to our Public Debt. On the IMF measure, our debt is very low by international standards, and would be the envy of most countries we normally compare ourselves to

New Zealand's economic performance compares very favorably against our peers. There are still areas where we have not done well for a long time (i.e. productivity) and areas that we should be better at (i.e. child poverty). Solving those will need further investment, not cuts.

This data also suggests that talk of somehow being "off-track" should be dismissed as a very superficial analysis. It's true that the cost of living is hurting many people. But If New Zealand is off-track then most other countries would welcome the opportunity to join us there.