What lifting New Zealand defence spending to 2 percent will cost
New Zealand is lifting defence spending to 2 percent of GDP by 2033. We read the Defence Capability Plan and Budget 2026 to show what it costs and buys.
Category: Economics
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Election 2026, what the BNZ buyback and KiwiSaver promises would cost
We put real numbers on three Election 2026 money promises, from the NZ First BNZ buyback to National’s KiwiSaver at 12 percent, using the actual accounts.
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Why your mortgage rate is rising in 2026 before the OCR even moves
The Middle East energy shock has ended the Reserve Bank’s easing cycle. We trace it through the RBNZ’s own numbers to your mortgage rate and petrol bill.
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Budget 2026 deepens the squeeze on New Zealand’s public service
Budget 2026 deepens a squeeze on the New Zealand public service that already peaked in 2024. We read the Treasury numbers and the official 55,000 FTE target.
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Reserve Bank holds the cash rate at 2.25 percent on the Governor’s casting vote as the next move points up
The Reserve Bank kept the Official Cash Rate at 2.25 percent on Wednesday 27 May, but the decision was the closest in years and the signal underneath it was the…
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How New Zealand Is Still Getting Petrol and Diesel With Hormuz Closed
New Zealand still has petrol, diesel and jet fuel four months into the Hormuz closure. Here is how Korean and Singapore refineries are keeping crude flowing.
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Kiwibank leverage now 13.5, down from 16.6 in 2020, still the highest of any major bank in New Zealand
Kiwibank has worked its leverage ratio down from a peak of 16.6 in late 2020 to 13.5 at the end of 2025, but it is still the most leveraged major…
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New home consents climb 11 percent in the year to March, the first annual rise in three years, with Auckland up 14 percent and Canterbury up 21 percent
Stats NZ figures show 37,700 new homes consented in the 12 months to March, up 11 percent on the previous year and the first annual increase in three years. Q1…
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Why are our banks, supermarkets and insurance companies owned by Australians?
If you have a New Zealand bank account, it sits inside one of four Australian-owned banks. ANZ is Australian. ASB is owned by Commonwealth Bank of Australia. BNZ is owned…
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New Zealand sold around twenty billion dollars of public assets and has paid foreign owners more than five hundred billion since
Between 1984 and 1999, the New Zealand Crown sold roughly $19 billion of state-owned businesses to private buyers. A second wave in 2013 and 2014 raised another $4.7 billion by…
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New Zealanders used to own their insurance companies and now Australian shareholders do
The average New Zealand household pays roughly six times as much in real terms for dwelling insurance as it did in 1981. The increase comes in two clear phases. From…
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Households have paid for the privatisation of New Zealand’s electricity system and industry has not
The average New Zealand household paid the real-terms equivalent of 15.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity in 1975, expressed in 2025 dollars. In 2025 the same household pays 34.6 cents.…
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Building the same house in New Zealand now costs twice what it did in 1984
The cost of building a standard new house in New Zealand has doubled in real terms since 1984. That is the headline finding from a comparison of Stats NZ’s Consumers…
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Real card spending falls for tenth quarter in a row
New Zealanders’ card spending grew 0.7 percent in the March 2026 quarter, but inflation of 3.1 percent means real volumes fell 2.3 percent — the tenth consecutive quarterly decline.
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The Other Half of New Zealand’s Petrol Tank — Singapore, Malaysia and the Suppliers Quietly Holding the Line
South Korea may be New Zealand’s biggest fuel supplier, but a third of our refined fuel comes from Singapore — and smaller volumes from Malaysia, Japan and China. Each is…
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New Zealand’s Free Trade Agreements have been a genuine win. The gains have not been shared evenly.
NZ’s Free Trade Agreements with China (2008) and the CPTPP (2018) have been a net win for the country — but exports to China rose tenfold while food prices at…
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Why is beef so expensive in New Zealand? The downside of the Free Trade Agreements shows up at the supermarket.
NZ beef at the supermarket costs more than it used to — not because of general inflation, but because of a specific mechanism economists call supply-overhang absorption. The China FTA…
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Inside South Korea’s Refinery Crisis and What It Means for the Fuel in Your Tank
A deep dive into the world’s largest clean oil products exporter, why it is quietly pulling back from the global market, and why New Zealand cannot afford to look away.…
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Residential building has outgrown business investment. The crossover was 2017.
New Zealand has spent more of its annual output on houses than on all other fixed capital combined every year since 2017. In 1988 residential building was 27% of fixed…
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Real wages in New Zealand are below their 1992 level. Labour productivity is higher.
New Zealand’s real wage index is lower at the end of 2025 than in 1992. Over the same 33 years, labour productivity in goods-producing industries rose 18% and in services…
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The food chain’s margins went up. Wattie’s is closing four plants. And shoppers paid for all of it.
Wattie’s closures have been framed as multinationals squeezing Kiwi workers and supermarkets squeezing Kiwi suppliers. The Stats NZ Producers Price Index says food manufacturer margins are up, not down. Meat…
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New Zealand’s 2020 to 2024 inflation was two problems, not one. The political argument has been fighting the wrong half.
Between 2020 and 2024 the CPI rose 21.2 percent. Half was a global shock every small open economy faced in similar size. The other half was distinctly ours — and…
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Four New Zealand towns were built on cheap Māui gas. Twenty-five years after it peaked, the industry hasn’t come back.
Real industrial electricity prices have doubled since the Māui gas field peaked in 2001. Four New Zealand towns — Kawerau, Tokoroa, Whangārei and Bluff — built their manufacturing base on…
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Real wages in New Zealand have risen since 1992. Pay for an unchanged job has not.
Correction. This article originally said real wages were below their 1992 level, based on the Labour Cost Index, a fixed-quality index that excludes promotions, merit and experience. Actual real earnings…
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New Zealand’s manufacturing base has barely grown in 35 years. Services tripled.
Between 1990 and 2025, New Zealand’s economy grew 150%. Services grew 187%. Non-food manufacturing grew 5%. A Newswire analysis of 35 years of Stats NZ GDP data shows the country’s…
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Build things again. Why New Zealand should finish what Muldoon started.
An argument for industrial ambition, generation at scale, and the second smelter we never built. Forty-four years after Aramoana, the case for state-led industrial policy is stronger than the consensus…
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Residential building has outgrown business investment. The crossover was 2017.
New Zealand’s fixed-capital investment has shifted from plant and machinery to housing. Stats NZ and BIS data show the residential share nearly doubling since 1988 while household debt tripled and…
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Wattie’s is closing four plants but food-chain margins are rising, price data shows
Stats NZ’s Producers Price Index shows every industry link in New Zealand’s food chain gained margin over the past two years, except meat processors. Consumers paid the accumulated difference.
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New Zealand’s heavy industry never recovered from Maui. The renewables boom hasn’t filled the gap.
An analysis of 47 years of industry productivity data shows four energy-intensive sectors never got back to their early-2000s peaks — a pattern economic commentary has largely missed.
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Why the Fuel Crisis Is Making the EV Switch Pay Off Faster Than Ever
With regular petrol at $3.50 a litre and diesel past $3.80, the financial case for switching to an EV has shifted dramatically. A new Newswire calculator shows exactly what the…