muppetking

Auckland Mayor John Banks says...in the past 10 years Auckland's economic growth per capita has been ZERO. That compares with growth rates of 20 per cent in Sydney and 24 per cent in Brisbane during the same preiod.
NZ today is in the bottom quarter of the OECD. We are ranked 27th, between Spain and Portugal. When I started in government 27 years ago we were in the top quarter. We need to fix the infrastructure if we are going to get NZ back to being a top-class economy. Given we are 30 per cent of the population and a THIRD of the Nation's wealth, if Auckland doesn't lift its economic output the country is doomed to Third World status. Here are the stats:
Traffic in Auckland is expected to double in the next 20 years
The city has more cars per capita than any other city in the world including LA
What d'ya reckon Wilf?

Don

I think your data feed is old (I guess 3 years old) - NZ has shot up the OECD rankings in the last 2 years due to the 40% appreciation of the NZD vs USD (rankings are in USD) and higher (than OECD average) GDP growth.

Wilf

I read recently that to put NZ back in the top half of the OECD rankings by 2011 would require 6% growth of GDP per head for every year from 2001 until 2011. I don't think they have got much above 4% and so already flagging. I also saw that this year's 4% prediction was halved recently, so that is also not a good sign. I agree very much that NZ's future is Auckland's future given that about 1/3 of the people live there and that will get more and more (big majority of immos go to Auck and immos are the only reason NZ's population is not going down) and from what I know of Auckland, that can only be bad news.

To me, NZ has a bleak future, in terms of its economy (especially jobs for the young people) and in terms of its society (lots of drug problems, lots of bored kids, lots of unemployed young maoris and polynesians, quite a lot of crime per head of population). Many people are still prepared to give it a go, though. Hopefully, they will not lose too heavily. The hardest years are ahead for NZ, and especially Auckland, and I think the country will change very much over the next few years - grow up, and face up to what it has to do to remain sort of "first world." I think a lot of kiwis are not ready for what has to be done. There must be lots more immigration and that will strain the limited infrastructure of that little place to breaking.

muppetking

The quote appeared in the Weekend Press TODAY but I guess it would come as no surprise that the data is behind the times!!