Latest / Best of Business / Liam Dann: NZ Herald Business editor-at-large on the Fitch ratings agency casting doubt on NZ's economy

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Liam Dann: NZ Herald Business editor-at-large on the Fitch ratings agency casting doubt on NZ's economy · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk st B.
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• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Heather Dupless Allen.
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  Speaker 2: Hither this is ridiculous. We do not need a tool
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  Speaker 2: for the gender pay gap. There is something called Excel.
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  Speaker 2: We have ninety seven staff and our HR does this
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  Speaker 2: simply on EXCEL. I mean, let's be honest about it, right.
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  Speaker 2: What this is is procrastinating, isn't it. It's I mean,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: what National is doing is they're going, hey, look, we're
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  Speaker 2: doing something about the gender pay gap while doing absolutely
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  Speaker 2: nothing by buying time, which isn't great because what they're
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: doing is they're wasting the time of the people at
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the Ministry of Women. And if the people at the
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Ministry of Women have the time to dawdle like this,
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  Speaker 2: fire the lot of them, Fire a lot of them,
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  Speaker 2: and stop the virtue signaling. That's what's going on. Nineteen
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  Speaker 2: past six, the Fitch Ratings Agency is mulling over the
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  Speaker 2: state of New Zealand's economy, like I told you, potentially
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: thinking about a ratings downgrade. Liam dan is The Herald's
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  Speaker 2: Business editor at large and with us. Now, hey, Liam, Hei,
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  Speaker 2: what do you reckon as our odds on for a
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  Speaker 2: downgrade or not.
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  Speaker 3: Odds orf Probably it's a great yarn from deleper Fonseca
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  Speaker 3: at Business desk, and he's talked to the guy at
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  Speaker 3: FITS and yes they are. They are a bit concerned
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  Speaker 3: when they do their analysis because you know, everything's got
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  Speaker 3: a bit worse and they're worried that the debt's going
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  Speaker 3: to be higher and we're going to be in depper
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  Speaker 3: the longer. So you know, it does put a bit
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  Speaker 3: of pressure on the argument for those tax cuts given
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  Speaker 3: the conditions we're in. Sort of but I look at
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  Speaker 3: looking through it, he's kind of saying, well, you know,
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  Speaker 3: they don't give anything away about the stuff, but that
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  Speaker 3: it puts us on the wrong side of the of
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  Speaker 3: the median for double A rating, so that that's not
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  Speaker 3: necessarily you know, being bad enough to be downgraded. You know,
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  Speaker 3: we're doing a lot of reading between the lines. That
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  Speaker 3: is a bit of a warning and it's you know,
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  Speaker 3: look at those ratings are one of the few things
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  Speaker 3: that have got people have people like me going, well,
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  Speaker 3: the things aren't so bad. You know, we've still got
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  Speaker 3: our double A plus rating actually, so we're the second
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  Speaker 3: best rating you can get for credit around the world.
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  Speaker 3: We're not quite triple A like Australia, but we're you know,
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  Speaker 3: we're sitting next to some other nations like the US
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  Speaker 3: and Taiwan, and it's not a bad place to be.
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  Speaker 3: And of course, if the rating gets worse, then we
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  Speaker 3: have to pay more for our foreign borrowing and that
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  Speaker 3: would potentially put our interest rates up.
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  Speaker 2: So what worried me in this lamb was the fact
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  Speaker 2: that they think the good times are behind us, Like
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  Speaker 2: the last ten years were great, the next ten years
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  Speaker 2: not so great, unless we can find a way to
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  Speaker 2: make heaps more money out of other places, not just China.
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  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that was that was That was a worrying
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  Speaker 3: But I mean, you can sort of talk about the
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  Speaker 3: cycle we're in and the you know, when we get
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  Speaker 3: out of deficit nightpest of stuff. But there was some
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  Speaker 3: serious discussion there about the fact that the drivers of
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  Speaker 3: the good times, I guess China and tourism boom and
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  Speaker 3: dairy boom are sort of petering out, you know, and
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  Speaker 3: that we need to find something else to charge our economy.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, look, Krystoh Luxen and co. Have talked
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  Speaker 3: about this, and they know that they've got to get
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  Speaker 3: something going with a bit more foreign direct investment and
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  Speaker 3: technology and all those good things. But it's, you know,
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  Speaker 3: one thing to talk about. It's nothing to get it going.
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  Speaker 3: I suppose China, we might, you know, might rebalance our
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  Speaker 3: relationship there and get something out of this latest visit,
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  Speaker 3: but yeah, who knows.
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  Speaker 2: Fingers crossed. I'll take anything, Liam. Thank you, Liam Dan,
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  Speaker 2: the Herald's Business editor at large.
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