Talk:Economy of New Zealand

Re-write?

This page needs to be rewritten from scratch: this article was originally created by the CIA for the CIA World Factbook, and unsurprisingly, is, to be blunt, flatly untruthful. New Zealand's incomes were at highest-in-the-world levels several decades ago, and have declined by the better part of %20 over the last two decades.

Yes, 203.109.254.58, you are absolutely right. It reads like a Thatcherite propaganda press release. Is there a New Zealander with the approriate skill set in the house? (By the way, why don't you create yourself a user account? You are doing lots of good stuff around here, you might as well sign in as yourself.) Tannin 19:49 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

Hi. I think "203.109.254.58" is actually my ISP's proxy-server IP, meaning anyone using my ISP becomes attributed to either that IP or one of several others. 4/5ths of what's under user-contributions for that address is other people's work, I know I don't know a thing about belly dancing :)

It would be difficult to find someone to write an article about New Zealand's economy, as the 'facts' to each individual depend on their political views, as NZ was an economic test-case etc etc.

I heartily agree. This is quite a "value-free" neoliberal summary of NZ's economic performance, and the 1984-1993 period really needs to be highlighted as distinct and highly important to the economy of NZ as a whole. Perhaps we need to have a sub-page from this linking to the 1984-1993 reforms specifically? I wrote an essay outlining the neoliberal, Keynesian, and Marxist interpretations of the 1945-1973 'Golden Weather' and the declining prospects post-1973, but it's 3000 words long and is perhaps not really Wikipedia-friendly. <2 hours later>...Right, I've put it here, kindof: WikiBooks: New Zealand Economics. Could someone please peruse it, comment, correct, and critique it, and perhaps summarise and link through from here? I would, but I'm still learning how to use Wiki (this is my first page :) ). kabl00ey 15:16:12, 2005-09-01 (UTC)

It's very difficult to balance this without a "What-if" machine. NZ's incomes may have been high back then, but that's not to suggest that without the reforms, they would have simply stayed that way. Rather we could have ended up with a scenario where no reforms meant NZ ended up slipping much further down. It may not have, so unless we can get some solid evidence either way about the effects of the reforms the article should take a middle of the road approach. It seems more widely accepted that at least some of the reforms were necessary, but the more controversial ones should be given with multiple interpretations. Nichlemn 08:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

See further comments on a proposed re-write at the bottom of this page.

Reformed to a free market economy

It's widely believed regardless of politics, that NZ was radically reformed to a free market economy it a very very short period of time and there were teething problems with this. There have been several academic articles citing NZ in this regard....—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.109.254.40 (talk • contribs) 13 February 2004

Could you cite any?? Taifarious1 04:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

A starting point would be the references in Rogernomics.-gadfium 07:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

GDP

New Zealand's PPP GDP is now at US$92bn not US$78bn. Article needs updating.

The article definitely needs a rewrite/update. I'm not an expert at all (just a high school student looking up some last minute information for exams!) but even I can see that.

"New Zealand has a very small current account deficit of 8-9% of GDP."

"The large current account deficit, which stood at more than 6.5% of GDP in 2000, has been a constant source of concern for New Zealand policymakers and has now hit 9% to date as of March 2006."

Is it large or small? And what is it now?

I might work on it after I finish exams, but if someone else knows more about this, it'd be great if they could step in... Simulato (talk) 08:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I've asked the editor who recently changed this part of the article to reply to your question, and in the meantime restored the article to its previous state for consistency.-gadfium 08:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... I used small because for a deficit, 8-9% is small (as we are already assuming its going to be negative anyways). But compared to other industrial nations e.g. Britain and Japan it is quite bad. And after reading my amendments again, it is wrong to word it like I did so, in the context it was given. But also, it would be better to compare it with public debt, as this will also be relevant for readers. The public debt is only 21.2% of GDP (CIA 2006 est.). It would be nice if this remark is mentioned next to it. --Waqas1987 (talk) 12:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

added some more context information. Ingolfson (talk) 10:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Gross external debt - the article has two values, NZ$86.342 billion (30.5% of GDP) (Feb 2018), which looks right and matches the source, and NZ$156.181 billion (53% of GDP) (December 2018), which looks very wrong and I can't confirm this number in the source. 114.134.4.11 (talk) 03:19, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

"Impressive Growth in the 21st Century" isn't part of "Economic Reforms of the 1980s"

There were major economic reforms between 1984 and 1991. But the major reforms started in 1985 and were mostly done by 1991 when the Employment Contracts Act came in.

This article lumps New Zealand's impressive economic growth from 1999-2007 in as the second paragraph of the section on the reforms that took place 1984-1991. Even if you think there's a causal link (and we could argue about that), they are not part of the same thing! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.154.239.116 (talk) 02:04, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide any sources regarding your assertions? New Zealand, to my knowledge, and along with Hong Kong and Singapore is a free market success story. You shouldn't only look at income but income relative to prices so as to determine the true standard of living. Considering inflation was high prior to the reforms, it would make sense wages would correspondingly be higher.

I agree with those who say this article reeks of POV issues. Since the 90's the New Zealand economy has been completely hollowed out. Only a shell now remains of New Zealand's former prosperity. Although not mentioned much, New Zealand has been completely devastated by the economic crisis. WjtWeston (talk) 00:06, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

The "growth" 1990-2007 was actually the upside of an economic bubble. WjtWeston (talk) 00:09, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Inequality

Can anyone tell me the level of income inequality in New Zealand compared to other developed nations, including the United States? 216.174.165.54 20:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Look at List of countries by income equality.-gadfium 01:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Poverty

Although NZ doesn't have an official poverty line (only a few countries don't), much work has been done to quantify relative poverty (starting from Kelsey), and the past year countless articles and initiatives surrounding child poverty. Adding in a timelime of poverty index for the past 30 years would IMO add greatly to the credibility of this article. Are any of the academic research groups ready to release their findings? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.198.23 (talk) 23:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Dependent Economies

Shouldn't there be some mention of the economies of other nations that are heavily dependent on New Zealand, particularly Pacific Island Nations like Tonga, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, Solomon Islands etc. for trade and development aid and what-not, because from what I've seen this article focuses mainly on the foreign trade that NZ relies on. Taifarious1 01:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Short answer: Yes, there should. Feel free! Ingolfson (talk) 07:32, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

From "New Zealand" article

I trimmed the following referenced sentences from the New Zealand article. They could slot in here, or be returned there if deemed important enough. AIRcorn (talk) 06:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

• In 2010, New Zealand's economy ranked as the fourth freest in the world according the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom.

• Ongoing economic challenges for New Zealand include a current account deficit of 2.9% of GDP, slow development of non-commodity exports and tepid growth of labour productivity.

• New Zealand has a relatively laissez-faire capitalist economy according to the Fraser Institute think tank.

• The country was ranked 1st in education and 5th in overall prosperity in the 2010 Legatum Institute prosperity index.

References

Will take India off of list

Will take India off of NZ main trading partner in first sentence. India doesn't appear anywhere near the list by volume - 2005:

Australia China Germany Indonesia Italy Japan South Korea Malaysia Singapore Taiwan Thailand UK United States

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_New_Zealand — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.225.28.6 (talk) 03:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Irrelevant information.

There is a significant amount of irrelevant information on this page which I feel is not relevant to the topic. What evidence is their that the economic reforms cause the increase in suicide rates? As far as I can tell there is only a pure correlation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.252.243.121 (talk) 00:58, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The material you have removed is as follows:

Between 1984 and 1999 New Zealand's economy and social capital faced a steady decline: the youth suicide rate grew sharply into one of the highest in the developed world; the proliferation of food banks increased dramatically; marked increases in violent and other crime were observed;

There is little in the way of hard evidence for the economy causing many things. Correlation is usually sufficient. If you don't think that suicide figures are relevant, why did you leave health care in the article? (I note that you removed it on the first occasion, but you also removed such indicators as unemployment, foreign debt and credit rating with that edit.) Surely the increase in food banks is pretty closely connected to the economy, but you took that out.-gadfium 01:53, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I have reverted 27.252.243.121's last edit and restored the paragraph deleted. This paragraph had reliable sources. 'Proof of causation' is not a criteria used on Wikipedia. If there is a concern over lack of NPOV, whole sale use of the delete key is not the answer. I suggest you could have either tagged the section as needing clarification or being POV. Or you could have provided alternative view points, or have reworded the paragraph to achieve NPOV. Mrfebruary (talk) 01:32, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Data from 22 years ago?

This is weird:

Household income or consumption by percentage share:

• Lowest 10%: 0.3% (1991)
• Highest 10%: 29.8% (1991)

Tony (talk) 08:43, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

GDP make-up

The stats for GDP make-up are flat-out wrong, and uncited. Judging by the claim that agriculture is 4.7% of GDP, my guess is the initial editor misread this report and mistook a 4.7% *increase* in agriculture's contribution to GDP as agriculture contributing 4.7% to GDP.

In the absence of better stats, I've removed the section entirely; someone who can find correct figures is welcome to add it in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Behemoth01 (talk • contribs) 09:21, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• Not far wrong. Updated 2014 sector stats with citation. Tymentyne (talk) 21:18, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

References

Largest trading partners

The claim that China is New Zealand's "largest trading partner" in 2013 is uncited and appears to be incorrect according to Statistics New Zealand. --LJ Holden 03:38, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Profile section

I'm slowly working my way through the article - there's a lot of stuff that is repeated, especially the "Profile" section which is largely a repeat of the History section. Unless anyone objects I will integrate what is currently in the Profile section with the History section. --LJ Holden 10:35, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Inequality information repeat

There is a lot of information being repeated on this article, making it lengthy. A recent edit expanded one of the sub-sections on New Zealand's economic history to add articles relating to inequality, which has its own section. I don't think its helpful to repeat this information in multiple places -as I've found a lot of the references are being doubled (in one case tripled) up, making the article even longer. --LJ Holden 02:10, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, there's the Social class in New Zealand article where this material could go. --LJ Holden 08:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

The inequality section is in need of a rewrite - it is very biased, and comments like "Then in 1991, benefits were also cut back substantially as part of the 'reforms' and those on welfare have been struggling ever since." lack references and are obviously influenced by the authors beliefs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.98.210.4 (talk) 02:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so how do we fix it then? --LJ Holden 02:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Complete revamp required to keep on topic

Reading this article came across as a quite politically motivated article including a lot of hyperbole and rhetoric. Introduces several (mainly social) one-sided issues supposedly supported by certain studies. I am proposing removing or severely editing large amounts of this article so it includes only indisputable facts and that are actually directly related to the Economy of New Zealand. The history is OK and seems factual on the most part. There is nothing on sectors but heaps on trading partners. There is nothing on currency. There are effectively two overviews. Many of the 'other indicators' have little direct relevance. So much detail on certain political/social items and so little detail on actual economic measures. I will refrain from making wholesale changes for a couple of months to allow comments 219.89.221.108 (talk) 10:26, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Happy to take contributions. I've tried to get this article back on topic as much as possible, and keep the statistics up to date as possible. --LJ Holden 22:47, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with original poster (219.89.221.108). People have clearly put a lot of work into this page, but it seems more political rhetoric than fact. Perhaps another country's page as a base (e.g. the UK page) and the equivalent statistics located for NZ? Please do make the wholesale changes that you proposed. Some of the parts that jump out are:

• "However, the generally positive outlook includes some challenges. New Zealand income levels, which used to be above those of many other countries in Western Europe prior to the crisis of the 1970s, have dropped in relative terms and never recovered. As a result, the number of New Zealanders living in poverty has grown and income inequality has increased dramatically." - no citation. --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
• "New Zealand's tax structure also contributes to the growing gap between the rich and poor. In the 2010 New Zealand budget, personal tax rates were cut with the top personal tax rate reduced from 38% to 33%[22] The cuts gave New Zealand the second-lowest personal tax burden in the OECD. Only Mexico's citizens had a higher percentage-wise "take home" proportion of their salaries.[23] The cuts in income tax were estimated to have reduced revenue by $2.46 billion.[24] To compensate, GST was raised from 12.5% to 15%.[25] This also has a negative impact on the poor. Treasury figures show that top income earners in New Zealand pay between 6% and 8% of their income on GST. Those at the bottom end, earning less than $356 a week, spend between 11% and 14% on GST. Based on these figures, the New Zealand Herald predicted that putting GST up to 15% would increase living costs for the poor more than twice as much as for the rich.[26]" This whole section is unbalanced. It discusses the reduction in tax from 38% to 33%, when this starting point is arbitrary - it could have talked about the increase from 33% to 38%. It would be better to just talk about the level. The section appears to assume that low taxes are a negative thing, when it is at least arguable that this is preferable in the absence of cuts to public services. Neither view belongs in an impartial encyclopedia. The fact that the change in income tax to GST negatively affected the poor, without discussing the changes to Working for Families etc that were specifically designed to keep the changes neutral is a little disingenuous. My recollection is that the changes came out of recommendations of a tax working group that recommended the changes to improve the economy by moving towards more efficient taxes that were harder to avoid - rather than a policy decision aimed at redistribution of wealth. That isn't how the passage comes across. --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
• "New Zealand is the highest-ranked (i.e. least corrupt) country on the Transparency International corruption perceptions index (CPI) of 2011.[27] Adam Feeley, former chief executive of the Serious Fraud Office has stated that fraud is widespread in New Zealand and there are fundamental misconceptions about New Zealand's ranking as one of the world's least corrupt countries.[28] International auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), agree. In 2011 PwC conducted a survey on Global Economic Crime which found that 50% of New Zealand organisations (both public and private) had experienced an economic crime in the previous 12 months. This gave New Zealand the 4th highest level of fraud out of the 78 countries surveyed.[29] In 2014 a Serious Fraud Office report showed Accident Compensation Corporation estimated that $500 million is being "misappropriated by exaggerated injuries and medical providers inventing 'phantom' clients" each year - but less than 1% of this is actually detected. The report also canvassed $8 billion of spending by district health boards and estimated 3% of this was being lost to fraud.[30]" Fraud is not the same thing as corruption. The corruption sub page that it links to is in my view more inappropriate than this page --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC). The high Transparency International ranking is only slightly relevant, in that NZ's lack of corruption is widely seen as a source of economic competitive advantage (see http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2014-2015/economies/#economy=NZL). Fraud does not, in my view, belong on a page about the economy. Note that the UK page does not contain a section on corruption and I would propose deleting this section. --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
• "As a result, more and more people are being pushed out of the property market. Those on low incomes are hardest hit, affecting many Maori and Pacific Islanders. New Zealand's relatively high mortgage rates are exacerbating the problem[41] even making it difficult for young people with steady jobs to buy their first home.[42] According to a submission made to the Housing Affordability Inquiry,[43] escalating house prices are also impacting on many middle income groups, especially those with large families.[44] Mortgage adviser Bruce Patten said the trend was 'disturbing' and added to the gap between the 'haves and have-nots'.[45]" Opinion. What place does the view of some mortgage adviser have in an encyclopedia? --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Whether purchases are made by New Zealanders or foreigners, it is generally those who are already well off that are buying the bulk of properties on the market. This has had a dramatic effect on home ownership rates by Kiwis, now at its lowest level since 1951. Even as recently as 1991, 76% of New Zealand homes were occupied by their owners. By 2013, this was down to 63%, indicating that more and more people are having to rent.[37] Raewyn Cox, chief executive of the Federation of Family Budgeting, says: "High prices and high interest rates (have) sentenced a rising number of New Zealanders to be lifetime tenants" where they are "stuck in expensive rental situations, heading towards retirement."[41]" Opinion. I'm also not sure that a Housing Affordability section makes sense in an economy page. --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
• The whole "Growing Inequality" section should be removed. Compare it to the Poverty section of the UK page, which just lists the statistics and points out that "The United Kingdom is a developed country with social welfare infrastructure, thus discussions surrounding poverty tend to be of relative poverty rather than absolute poverty." --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree. The section is largely politically biased and misleading e.g. the statement "marked increases in violent and other crime were observed;" has a cite to a paper that actually shows overall crime decreased from 1992 to 2000. Cadae (talk) 10:27, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

• I think the Superannuation section should be removed. I don't see its relevance to an economy page. --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
• I stopped reviewing at this point. Perhaps sites like these could help with more neutral facts: http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2014-2015/economies/#economy=NZL and http://www.treasury.govt.nz/economy/overview/2015/nzefo-15.pdf

Hi, thanks for adding this, but please remember to sign your comments. I think the points made above are valid, I think the uncited claims should be the first to go, unless they can be cited. I suggested adding the {{cite}} tags to them first so that other editors may add citations as required. I found though that in a number of cases citations had been made that did not actually verify the statements in the article, so we do need to check the citations. Also, a number of news media articles are cited where academic publications should be used, and the language reflects this. --LJ Holden 21:22, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I signed in the beginning of the block, but have now done each point. --KwikWikiKiwi (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks also from me for raising this KwikWikiKiwi. I've stripped the 'corruption' section back - this appears to have been POV pushing by the now-blocked (and defacto banned) editor Offender9000. I suspect that some of the other material you note above was also from him. Nick-D (talk) 09:00, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

• I updated the corruption index to the 2015 version under corruption as the ranking had changed - the reference also shows the old value too as it is just an updated link to the same reference (Transparency International). Ps2jak2 (talk) 01:40, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

External link to tariff data

Hello everyone, I am working for the International Trade Centre (ITC), a UN/WTO agency that aims to promote sustainable economic development through trade promotion. I would like to propose the addition of an external link (http://www.macmap.org/QuickSearch/FindTariff/FindTariff.aspx?subsite=open_access&country=554&source=1%7CITC) that leads directly to our online database of customs tariffs applied by New Zealand. Visitors can easily look up market access information for New Zealand by selecting the product and partner of their interest. I would like you to consider this link under the WP:ELYES #3 prescriptions. Moreover, the reliability and the pertinence of this link can be supported by the following facts 1) ITC is part of the United Nations, and aims to share trade and market access data on by country and product as a global public good 2) No registration is required to access this information 3) Market access data (Tariffs and non-tariff measures) are regularly updated

Thank you, Divoc (talk) 11:24, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I see the site is already linked to at tariff and about a dozen related articles. It is also linked to by several dozen "Economy of <country>" articles, added by yourself. I think adding links to this site to articles on the economies of individual countries appears to be overkill.-gadfium 00:08, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your response gadfium. Even if I consider market access information as an essential part and relevant for economies of individual countries, I can see your point and won't add the proposed link. Best, Divoc (talk) 09:18, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

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Unemployment

Under the Unemployment section, it says ″there is he official number of people unemployed in 1959 was only 21. A year later it was 22.″ This is unclear - is it that the total number of unemployed people in New ZEaland rose by one? Or is this a percentage? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.57.203.226 (talk) 04:05, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

These are supposed to be numbers not percentages, but the reference given for the figures does not contain unemployment numbers for these years, and although New Zealand had very low unemployment in that era, sources I could find in a quick online search suggest they were not as low as our article states. For example, the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand gives 1,656 unemployed in July 1959[1], and the 1959 New Zealand Yearbook says "The numbers of applications for unemployment benefits dealt with during the years ended 31 March 1957 and 1958 were 949 and 1,415 respectively", with lower numbers actually granted benefits.[2] Clearly there is something seriously amiss in the figures this article is presenting. On the other hand, there is "At one point in the 1950s there was a joke that the Prime Minister knew the name of every unemployed person in New Zealand."[3]-gadfium 08:12, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Political bias

The phrase: “The results of the experiment never materialized” is inconsistent with the following: “ Between 2000 and 2007, the New Zealand economy expanded by an average of 3.5% a year driven primarily by private consumption and the buoyant housing market. During this period, inflation averaged only 2.6% a year, within the Reserve Bank's target range of 1% to 3%“. Market oriented reforms are never immediate in it’s implementation and outcomes. Russia started to grown after 8 years of it’s limited reforms. The market is a chain, it doesn’t takes one day or two to turn the country more productive, efficient, entrepreneurial, and solid/capitalized. So the assumption that the results promised by the proposers of the reforms never materialized is a biased conclusion based in opinion. The article clearly shows an anti capitalistic stance, some of the sources chosen are biased and I’m not sure the article is entirely covered with credible sources. Cheers from Brazil.