New Zealanders' Standard of Living in Freefall

Responding to today’s release of the Q3 2023 GDP figures, Taxpayers’ Union Policy Adviser, James Ross, said:

“New Zealanders have years of economic mismanagement by their government to thank for them getting poorer and poorer by the day. In just the 3 months to September alone, GDP per capita fell by an eye-watering 0.9%. With GDP per capita plummeting for the fourth quarter in a row, our standard of living is in freefall.

“In a country which already has one of the lowest productivity levels in the developed world, an anti-growth government has been doing everything it can to stifle innovation and growth; this strategy is now bearing its sour fruit as New Zealand is deep in the belly of a crippling per capita recession.

“There’s no more time to waste, and the simple fact of the matter is that Kiwis cannot afford three more years of the same ruinous economic negligence. National need to quit just paying lip service to the idea that an economy should grow, and to do so they must commit to significantly shrinking the cost of government and slashing the red tape which is holding our country back.”