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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist outlines predictions for Budget Day 2025 · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: Just two more sleeps until Budget Day, Brad Olson's favorite
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  Speaker 2: day of the year, and he's with us.
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  Speaker 3: Now, Hey, Brad, good evening.
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  Speaker 2: Is it really your favorite day?
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  Speaker 3: It's definitely up there. I mean, you know, birthdays and
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  Speaker 3: Christmas are good. But when you sort of get locked
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  Speaker 3: in our room with a huge amount of information to
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  Speaker 3: go through and put your economic wits to a test,
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  Speaker 3: it's always important.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, with the time pressure, I mean, it is just
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  Speaker 2: so intense and fun. Okay, what are you going to
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  Speaker 2: be looking out for. What's the one thing that you
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  Speaker 2: do not know about? You want to understand and this
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  Speaker 2: is the thing that you go straight to ot look.
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  Speaker 3: Infrastructure in my mind only because I think it'll be
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  Speaker 3: more than one thing. I don't think there'll just be
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  Speaker 3: one announcement. And there's already been some, right, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: there's been a lot of money that's been put towards
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  Speaker 3: the likes of defense and similar but government, you know,
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  Speaker 3: continues to talk about how much infrastructure it wants to
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  Speaker 3: invest and we can see it around the country. There
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  Speaker 3: is a desperate need for that across the likes of
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  Speaker 3: you know, hospitals and schools, but also the likes of
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  Speaker 3: you know, water pipes, roads, everything else that keep the
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  Speaker 3: economy moving. So that's going to be my big focus
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  Speaker 3: what stuff is in there, because if the government can
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  Speaker 3: unlock a greater level of infrastructure investment, that's the sort
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  Speaker 3: of stuff that does get the economy motoring. It creates
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  Speaker 3: or keeps more people in construction jobs to start with,
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  Speaker 3: and when those facilities, when those assets are up and running,
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  Speaker 3: is a whole lot more that they can provide. And
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  Speaker 3: I think, particularly looking out at the likes of provincial
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  Speaker 3: and regional New Zealand, there's some real opportunities to supercharge
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  Speaker 3: stuff there. So that's the big one. But of course,
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  Speaker 3: as we've talked about, I think for probably the last
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  Speaker 3: two weeks on the show now that the key we
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  Speaker 3: say a question is still coming up time and time again.
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  Speaker 3: So although it seems pretty close that something is going
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  Speaker 3: to come out there, just the details will want to
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  Speaker 3: get across what they mean for people.
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  Speaker 2: Back in you know. One thing that struck me as
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  Speaker 2: being slightly different this time around is that last in
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  Speaker 2: budgets previously we've always looked out for the lollies like
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  Speaker 2: who's getting what freeb But this time there is no
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  Speaker 2: sense of that, and it is more what's been cut?
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  Speaker 2: Would you agree with that?
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  Speaker 3: Indeed, And to be fair, that was a part of
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  Speaker 3: last year, but we had a pretty good read already
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  Speaker 3: from the government at that point because they'd said, you know,
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  Speaker 3: government ministries need to take a six and a half
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  Speaker 3: percent baseline cap. This time around, it's not quite across
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  Speaker 3: the board everyone needs to find savings. It's more that
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  Speaker 3: there are big, quite chunky projects or sort of proposals
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  Speaker 3: that were already there that might now be coming out.
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  Speaker 3: So you're definitely right in terms of what's not going
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  Speaker 3: to be in there for the future. But I also
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  Speaker 3: think slightly different with this budget is there seems to
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  Speaker 3: be a few more sort of non financial announcements that
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  Speaker 3: the government wants to make as part of it. So
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  Speaker 3: they might be funding some new proposal, but they're also saying, look,
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  Speaker 3: we're going to make this other change that might not
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  Speaker 3: necessarily cost a whole lot of money, but if we
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  Speaker 3: can make a financial shift plus a regulatory shift, change
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  Speaker 3: some of the rules around this to make things go
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  Speaker 3: faster or and not have so many barriers in the way.
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  Speaker 3: Then that also seems to be a part I think
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  Speaker 3: of the government strategy this budget. I mean that the
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  Speaker 3: Finance Minister has highlighted that this is all around growth.
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  Speaker 3: So again I think there's now a real expectation there.
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  Speaker 3: We'll be wanting to see better growth expectations coming from
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  Speaker 3: the Treasury now because if the government is getting serious
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  Speaker 3: about growing growth and they need to get Treasury over
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  Speaker 3: the line, if they can convince the Treasury guys over
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  Speaker 3: the line, then we're definitely back in business.
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  Speaker 2: Good stuff. Hat's always good to talk to you, Brad.
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  Speaker 2: We'll see you there. Brad Olsen, Infametrix Principle Principal Economists.
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