Latest / Best of Business / Liam Dann: NZ Herald business editor at large on the Reserve Bank raising issues with Stats NZ data

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Liam Dann: NZ Herald business editor at large on the Reserve Bank raising issues with Stats NZ data · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: The Reserve Bank is taking issue with the quality and
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  Speaker 2: also the quantity of Stats New Zealand data. This has
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  Speaker 2: come out of the Reserve Bank wash up yesterday. Liam
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  Speaker 2: dan Is The Herald's Business editor at large. Hey, Lium yeay, Ryan,
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  Speaker 2: what's going on here?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, the Reserve Bank is being diplomatic.
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  Speaker 3: They're not saying that it's a failing of the Stats
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  Speaker 3: n Z basically you know that they still work out
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  Speaker 3: and everything, but they're basically calling for more funding and
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  Speaker 3: sort of more focus on the core economic data. So
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  Speaker 3: they point to the big GDP revision late last year,
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  Speaker 3: which effectively said the economy was in much better shape
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  Speaker 3: over the period twenty twenty three than we thought as
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  Speaker 3: one of the reasons for the misstep or u turn
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  Speaker 3: or whatever that they didn't make the change in the
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  Speaker 3: in the direction that sort of people picked up on
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  Speaker 3: between May and August. That's one of the reasons that
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  Speaker 3: they highlighted there. So this came through yesterday and again
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  Speaker 3: in the Select Committee this morning. They're saying our stats
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  Speaker 3: just aren't up for purpose. Really, they're saying there's six
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  Speaker 3: months out of date and often mismeasured was the quote.
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  Speaker 2: But do other countries not operate on the similar numbers
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  Speaker 2: because and as they're not more high you know, the
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  Speaker 2: high frequency data that they like to talk about from
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  Speaker 2: lots of different sources in New Zealand that the central
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  Speaker 2: banks should be looking also.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so they're saying they're having to look more closely
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  Speaker 3: at the high frequency stuff, which is like your performance
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  Speaker 3: and manufacturing and all this sort of stuff. But it's
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  Speaker 3: the trouble that the more high frequency it is, the
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  Speaker 3: less you know, absolute it is in terms of giving
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  Speaker 3: us good, strong signals. And yeah, internationally they get inflation
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  Speaker 3: data once a month, and a lot of places they
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  Speaker 3: get GDP once a month and they down the GDP.
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  Speaker 3: And look, we're a small country, so I suppose we
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  Speaker 3: don't have the resource, but we're also a small country
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  Speaker 3: in terms of what we measure. And when you think
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  Speaker 3: about how important this is, like it's if there's a
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  Speaker 3: misalignment between the monetary policy based on understanding where our
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  Speaker 3: economy is, it can cost billions of dollars. As we've
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  Speaker 3: seen over the last few years now. I'm putting aside
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  Speaker 3: the fact that a lot of people there are critics
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  Speaker 3: out there who'll say that this sounds like excuses or
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  Speaker 3: whatever from our bank. Regardless, I think it's an area
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  Speaker 3: that you know, we can't lose. And if the government
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  Speaker 3: doesn't have a lot of money to do to look
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  Speaker 3: at the funding on this, perhaps they should be looking
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  Speaker 3: at some of the prioritization of where status puts its focus,
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  Speaker 3: because they have had a number of years of sort
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  Speaker 3: of broadening their focus under the previous government. Well being
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  Speaker 3: and things like that, looking at a wide range.
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  Speaker 2: Of nonsense stuff.
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  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, look I had a look. There isn't that
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  Speaker 3: much nonsense stuff, but there is a lot of qualitative stuff,
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  Speaker 3: stuff that gives us a nice breakdown of how inflation
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  Speaker 3: falls within different social groups and different uh, you know,
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  Speaker 3: all the different groupings. It's nice to see that and
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  Speaker 3: it can help with policy setting for inequality and all
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  Speaker 3: that sort of stuff. But really, at the core, you know,
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  Speaker 3: we need to get the basics right, and that's maybe
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  Speaker 3: where we're not leading the world like we should be.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting, surely there's some at one day and there'll
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  Speaker 2: be an AI thing that will just take care of
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  Speaker 2: it all.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can never decide whether I'm scared of the AI.
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  Speaker 3: I just wanted to move faster and actually start getting
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  Speaker 3: it all right.
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  Speaker 2: Liam and New Zealand he Business Editor at Large. Thanks
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  Speaker 2: so much for your time.
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