Recession will be shallow - Cullen

ROBERT KITCHIN/The Dominion Post

TALK TO THE HAND: Finance Minister Michael Cullen told a National Party member who wrote to him worried about how many people were moving to Australia to "please join them".

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Finance Minister Michael Cullen has conceded that New Zealand could be headed for a "technical recession".

A technical recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of the economy shrinking.

Asked about turmoil in world markets, Dr Cullen said today he could not rule out a recession but any downturn looked like being shallow.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said New Zealand was better placed than most economies to ride out any downturn.

Meanwhile, Dr Cullen says Inland Revenue has confirmed an embarrassing error in data which went into the Government's anuary accounts, which would now be more positive than those figures showed.

The January accounts showed tax revenue was $700 million below forecast and at the time there was no good explanation.

It appeared the decline came from lower than expected GST receipts leading to speculation the economy was slowing more rapidly than expected.

Inland Revenue and Treasury are holding a press conference this morning to explain the error.

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Hamish   #3   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

Either it's a recession or it's not. And anyone who uses the same rose tinted glasses as this Government, and believes their b**lsh*t will no doubt have taken special care to feed their pigs this morning...'cause they're ready to fly.

Robert   #2   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

About as shallow as Labour promises. Recessions in New Zealand are never shallow.

dan   #1   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

This is a joke, he can hardly suggest that any recession we enter will be anything but shallow at the risk of causing a panic. Anyone foolish enough to believe the deliberately misguided statements being released to the public deserves to get burnt.

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