{"id":29335,"date":"2025-09-18T09:08:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T09:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/29335\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T09:08:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T09:08:06","slug":"former-finance-minister-roger-douglas-calls-for-nicola-willis-to-resign-after-gdp-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/29335\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Finance Minister Roger Douglas calls for Nicola Willis to resign after GDP slump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Willis said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had confidence in her to keep growing the economy<\/a> and she had spoken with him about her ability to hold the finance portfolio.<\/p>\n

MacCulloch said Willis kept saying the country was returning to surplus.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Finance Minister Roger Douglas is calling for Nicola Willis to resign after a GDP slump. Photo \/ Paul Taylor<\/p>\n

\u201cThe books are not improving. And this surplus she talked about today, that\u2019s a creative accounting trick. She changed the way the accounts were being measured… she keeps saying they\u2019re getting better, it\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Stats NZ data showed the economy shrank more sharply than expected in the June quarter, down 0.9%.<\/p>\n

It is a longer and sharper downturn than that experienced in the Global Financial Crisis.<\/p>\n

Willis blamed the slump on global turmoil and uncertainty driven by the United States\u2019 tariff rollout.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe economy had been growing strongly in the previous six months but suddenly had the stuffing knocked out of it,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel for people and businesses who have been affected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willis stressed the data was \u201cbackwards looking\u201d and there were signs the economy was growing again as interest rates fell.<\/p>\n

Economists agreed the outlook for the third quarter was better but said, given the sharp contraction, activity was still lower than had been expected.<\/p>\n

MacCulloch said it was disingenuous to blame the global situation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe mentioned the tariffs hitting much harder here \u2013 that makes no sense at all. In fact, most countries overseas had far higher tariff uncertainty than New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willis told RNZ she would not take up the pair\u2019s advice to quit.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir Roger and Professor MacCulloch want me to immediately slash Government spending. I\u2019m not going to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternational evidence is that reducing deficits is best done over the course of several years. That is what the Government is doing. We are on course to return the books to surplus in 2028\/29.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said Australia\u2019s economy grew 0.6% over the same period.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere to next, you know? Is it the fault of the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, but not Nicola Willis? It\u2019s her responsibility \u2013 she\u2019s the Minister for Finance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Willis said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had confidence in her to keep growing the economy and she had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,138,115,28705,813,246,2082,2740,12410,6722,111,139,20484,69,3056,6372,8603,812,61,792],"class_list":["post-29335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-after","tag-business","tag-calls","tag-douglas","tag-edmunds","tag-finance","tag-for","tag-former","tag-gdp","tag-minister","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nicola","tag-nz","tag-resign","tag-roger","tag-slump","tag-susan","tag-to","tag-willis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}