National’s litany of economic failure

• James Henderson
• 10 years ago
• Categories: Economy

I finally got up the courage to trawl through Tracy Watkins’ hagiography to John Key and found something interesting at the end. The Dom has made a table of main economic and fiscal measures comparing where they are now to where they were in 2008 and, crucially, where they were projected to be now in the forecasts Treasury made immediately after National came to power. It’s a list of National failure.

BY THE NUMBERS

Debt:

2008 $10.3b

The 2008 forecast for 2013: $29b

Actual 2013: $55b

The Budget:

2008: $5.6b surplus.

Forecast 2013: deficit $3.3b

Actual 2013: deficit $4.4b

Current account deficit:

2008: -7.8 per cent

Forecast 2013: -5 per cent

Actual 2013: -4.7 per cent (there has been a major methodology change to the CAD that has brought it lower)

Economic growth:

2008: -0.6 per cent

Forecast 2013: 3.1 per cent

Actual: 2013: 2.5

Unemployment:

2008: 4.3 per cent

Forecast 2013: 4.6 per cent

Actual 2013: 6.2 per cent

Economic rebalancing:

The gap between income from the tradeable sector and the non-tradables sector has widened since 2008.

 

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I’ve had a look at the December Economic and Fiscal Update 2008 that the Dom has used myself. Remember, it was written at the deepest point of  the Global Financial Crisis.

It projected growth over the past five years would have been 13%. Under National, it was just 5%.