Nats fail to keep biggest promise (and the rest)

• Marty G
• 14 years ago
• Categories: Economy, national
• Tags: broken promises, john key

One of National’s election promises was to close ‘the gap’ with Australia – sometimes this is taken to mean the GDP per capita gap, other times the wage gap. By any measure, National is failing miserably.

In the December quarter, the economy finally grew faster than the population but we’ve fallen a long way further behind Australia under National and even the 0.8% growth in December (which is pretty weak compared to growth after other recessions) was below the 0.9% growth enjoyed by Australia.

With weak growth, wages falling in inflation-adjusted terms, and unemployment now 2% higher than in Australia and rising the question has to be asked: when is John Key going to keep his promise to close the gap with Australia?

(PS. letting Aussie mining come and dig up the gold in our most precious places won’t help)