Andrew Dickens: Time For the Prime Minister to Be A Star At Home

Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Well the Prime Minister is back and all the glamour of her week abroad has quickly evaporated.
Let me just say for the record that she did very well in Japan and New York. She avoided the gnarly politics surrounding Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. Both men were very welcoming to our country and our future trade and this bodes well.
She was charming in chat shows and a good ambassador for New Zealand and it seems we’re a well liked country at the moment.
But back home this morning she was asked by all and sundry about the poor business confidence figures. Based on the mood of the boardroom you’d think we were back in the bad black days of the GFC where the fear of not just recession but depression stalked the hallways of parliaments and businesses.
But we’re not.
We’ve slowed. But we’re ticking on. And most of our fundamentals are rock solid yet we do have a government that has put a stop to some plans and is taking an age to institute new ones. This has been perceived as indecision and indecision breeds insecurity and doubt and when that happens you shut the wallet.
There appears to be just one commentator fighting against the rumours and that is the Herald’s business editor at large, Liam Dann.
As he says most economists say we’ve slipped, most say it will get a little worse and most say it will start improving at the beginning of next year. Nobody is predicting a recession.
So asked what she’s going to do about the trough we’ve found herself the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister play a game of look over there
As they point out GDP growth at 2.1 per cent - or even 1.9 per cent - still puts us ahead of Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK, Europe or the OECD average.
But all these comparisons of growth are relative. North Korea is growing at 7 per cent under the Rocketman. But they’re starting at Stone Age levels and 7 per cent of little is still little.
The point I’d like to make is the same as Liam Dann’s. Talking yourself into a funk because of the government is self fulfilling. This government prefer to spend on alternative transport options and not on roads and they want to tinker with Labour laws but that will not wreck the economy.
This morning the Prime Minister had the chance to calm the horses and she did not take it.
She needs to put the international spotlight to one side and get down to brass tacks and be a star at home. As Liam Dann said yesterday she needs to use her verbal skills to reassert the Government's economic plan, to reassure on its execution and to remind New Zealanders that the outlook is not really so grim.

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