We have dubbed Budget 2025 the “Switch-It” Budget, with a greater focus across the Budget on deliberate trade-offs and fiscal reprioritisation that spends money in new areas, paid for by reducing money spent in other areas. There are few large new promises or spending programmes, with various smaller initiatives more in focus.
Budget 2025 was delivered amid a backdrop of rising global uncertainty, dragging broader economic expectations lower and making fiscal settings more constrained. Domestic economic activity is still set to recover, but Budget 2025 also reinforced views that the government will be less of a driving force for this recovery, as more focus is shifted to households and the private sector to rev up New Zealand’s economic engines.
Many of us have come to accept that doing the right thing for the environment comes with a higher cost. However, our recent analysis for the New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) found that households can be substantially better off with the benefits of a greener home.
Can a student who doesn’t flourish at school catch up through tertiary education? Second chance learners can improve their prospects, but based on an analysis of average earnings, people who attain lower qualifications at school remain at a disadvantage several years after graduating from tertiary education.
Fuel is critically important to any economy, given it literally powers and enables the movement of goods and people, supports production, and underpins supply chains. A stable, secure, and affordable fuel supply helps maintain economic stability, and so knowing where fuel is sourced from better informs security of supply and the importance of strong trading relationships.
Infometrics Quarterly Economic Monitor (QEM): Release 22 May 20225
Our Quarterly Economic Monitor for the March 2025 quarter showing how regional economies performed over the final quarter of last year is now available to clients.
Economic conditions remain challenging around the country at the start of 2025, despite some parts of the economy showing sustained but limited growth.
Provisional estimates from the Infometrics March 2025 Quarterly Economic Monitor show underlying quarterly economic activity picked up in the March 2025 quarter, but remains down 1.1% over the 12 months to March 2025 compared to a year earlier.
