{"id":27970,"date":"2014-09-23T08:06:06","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T12:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=27970"},"modified":"2014-09-23T08:06:06","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T12:06:06","slug":"rock-star-economy-leads-to-first-majority-government-in-new-zealand-since-1996","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/09\/23\/rock-star-economy-leads-to-first-majority-government-in-new-zealand-since-1996\/","title":{"rendered":"“Rock star economy” leads to first majority government in New Zealand since 1996"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Fensom<\/a> reports on Saturday’s election results in New Zealand:<\/p>\n

New Zealand\u2019s \u201crock star economy\u201d helped center-right Prime Minister John Key achieve a thumping election victory. But with major trading partner China slowing, are financial market celebrations premature?<\/p>\n

The New Zealand dollar, government bonds, and stocks gained after Key\u2019s National Party romped to power in Saturday\u2019s poll, securing its third straight term and the nation\u2019s first majority government since proportional representation was introduced in 1996.<\/p>\n

Despite \u201cdirty politics\u201d claims and a late attempted campaign ambush by internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom<\/a>, the incumbent National Party won 61 of 121 parliamentary seats and 48.1 percent of the vote, the party\u2019s best result since 1951.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the main opposition left-leaning Labour Party, which pledged an expansion of government, secured only 24.7 percent of the vote for its worst performance since 1922. The Greens won 10 percent and New Zealand First 8.9 percent as pre-election predictions of a closer race proved false.<\/p>\n

Key pledged to maintain strategic alliances with the Maori, ACT and United Future parties, which won four seats between them, further strengthening his parliamentary majority.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

\u201cLike [Australian Prime Minister] Abbott, Key as a new prime minister inherited a budget and an economy in deep trouble\u2026Six years later, the budget is in surplus, unemployment at 5.6 percent is falling and the economy is growing so strongly the New Zealand Reserve Bank became the first among developed countries to raise interest rates to deter inflation,\u201d noted<\/a> the Australian Financial Review<\/em>\u2019s Jennifer Hewett.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only did the Key government cut personal and corporate tax rates, it raised the goods and services tax to 15 percent while steadily reducing government spending over years of \u2018zero budgets,\u2019\u201d wrote Hewett, who urged Abbott to \u201clearn some sharp lessons\u201d from Key\u2019s electoral successes.<\/p>\n

Key\u2019s party has pledged to cut government debt<\/a> to 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), reduce taxes \u201cwhen there is room to do so\u201d and create more jobs, aiming to undertake further labor and regulatory reforms as well as boosting the supply of housing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony Fensom reports on Saturday’s election results in New Zealand: New Zealand\u2019s \u201crock star economy\u201d helped center-right Prime Minister John Key achieve a thumping election victory. But with major trading partner China slowing, are financial market celebrations premature? The New Zealand dollar, government bonds, and stocks gained after Key\u2019s National Party romped to power in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,683,53],"tags":[697,71,188,301,118],"class_list":["post-27970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-pacific","category-politics","tag-budget","tag-debt","tag-electionwatch","tag-newzealand","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7h8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27971,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27970\/revisions\/27971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}