Global economic growth remains weak and inflation pressures globally are easing. This follows a period of significant monetary policy tightening amongst our trading partners. International supply chains have also eased following a period of disruption and shipping costs have declined. The weaker global growth has also led to lower export prices for New Zealand's goods. In New Zealand, inflation is expected to continue to decline from its peak and with it also measures of inflation expectations. However, core inflation pressures do remain and will remain until capacity pressures ease further. While employment is above its maximum sustainable level, there are now signs of labour shortages easing and vacancies declining. Consumer spending growth has eased and residential construction has declined while house prices have returned to more sustainable levels. I do have to say it's very pleasing to be talking you through these statistics after a long battle.
More generally, businesses are reporting slower demand for their goods and services and weak investment intentions. Businesses report that a lack of demand rather than labour shortages is now the main constraint on activity. There has been a return of net inward migration since international borders reopened and the committee expects the pace of that immigration to ease back toward pre-COVID-19 trend levels over coming quarters.
While immigration has assisted to ease the labour shortages, its net impact on overall spending in the economy remains uncertain. The recent recovery and tourism spending to around about three quarters of the level it was at pre-COVID-19 is also supporting demand. And the repair and rebuild facing significant regions of the north island due to the severe weather events of recent will also support economic activity, particularly in the horizontal construction sector.
The timing of this predominantly government investment will be spread over several years. Meanwhile, broader government spending is anticipated to decline in inflation adjusted terms and also as a proportion to GDP. As a committee, we are confident that with interest rates remaining at restricted levels for some time, consumer price inflation will return to within its target range of one to 3% while supporting maximum sustainable employment.
Before we open up to questions, I do just want to just make a couple of more comments mostly just around how the committee reached our decision today and you'll see that today it was the first time that we went to vote to come to a decision. Given that is novel, I wanted to just remind people our MPC charter, how we to behave and communicate and our frameworks all aim to facilitate effective decision making. While we've reached a consensus in previous meetings, a vote can be very effective and this time it proved to be very effective way of making a decision.
I want to say that we were all in broad agreement with the outlook for monetary policy. We just didn't reach a consensus on the OCR itself, hence the vote. We've published the unattributable vote in our record of meeting and today and onwards we'll always be talking about the committee's decision. We are a committee and we have tools to come to decisions. We stand by this decision as a committee and I would want to say that it's very pleased to say that everyone has retained full confidence in the process and each other in a very collaborative and constructive style for making today's announcements.
With that said, there's a wealth of information. I always love to advertise this incredible document. It's called the Monetary Policy Statement and it has a wealth of insight and information for all people out there in the economy of [inaudible 00:06:11] New Zealand. Thank you very much and open to questions.
Media questions
Media: Good afternoon Governor. I was wondering if you might be able to go into a little bit of detail about how much impact last week's budget had on the committee's decision. There have been a number of commentators that said it was more expansionary and more spending than had previously been anticipated. So how did that frame the committee's discussion and decision?
Adrian Orr: Yes, thank you and very good question. I'll remind you the record of the meeting, which is in the Monetary Policy Statement. We do go into all of the issues we talked about and the balance of risks and then the decision making and in there you'll see discussion on the recent fiscal policy decisions. The most important thing and really the only relevant thing for monetary policy is that the outlook for fiscal spending is contractionary on demand and that is what is factored into our outlook ahead. Yes, there is an increase in government investment for very obvious reasons, mostly driven by recovery through the cyclone period, but broad government spending once you add government consumption is actually declining as a proportion of GDP throughout the forecast period.
Media: Yes. So just to follow up, are you able to specifically talk about the short term? I understand the long term forecasts but the short term, are you able to go into more detail about this budget?
Adrian Orr: I really don't know what you defined by short term. So no, I think is the answer. The budget we take as given we edit into the aggregate spending. It's declining as a proportion of GDP and that's the outcome that you see.
Media: Hey, Jenna Lynch, NewsHub Nation. There's always a lot of focus on mortgage holders, but what about everyday working New Zealanders, the 430,000 people that are falling behind on their loans, struggling to pay bills, struggling to put food on the table, what is your message to them?
Adrian Orr: Our message to them is that inflation is no one's friend and it is inflation that is causing the most significant economic challenge at present to all New Zealanders and our job is to return inflation back to its one to 3%. What I'd like to say to them is that we're well on the path to achieving that.
Media: But those same people are the ones that would be hurt in a recessionary environment, in a downturn. They don't seem to be a major feature in any of your commentary or analysis. Why is that?
Adrian Orr: I disagree with your supposition. There is significant, in fact an entire chapter around the labour market, labour force and maximum sustainable employment.
Media: Those people can't, in your words, "Cool their jets with their spending." They're borrowing to get the basics. And what they hear from you is that what we are seeing is what we are hoping to observe. Do you feel like you're in touch with the pain that people are feeling right now?
Adrian Orr: I don't know that comment. So what I'm saying is absolutely we're in touch. Inflation is no one's friend and we are here to stamp inflation out with monetary policy. I will also point out that unemployment has been at record low levels. Employment and employment engagement in the economy is at OECD record levels, but we need to constrain inflation.
Media: And do you personally take some responsibility for the inflationary environment that we're seeing right now?
Adrian Orr: I am the Governor of the Reserve Bank, yes, I do.
Media: So. I'm Jenée Tibshraeny from the Herald. Few things. Firstly, what impact do you think this decision and the OCR track will have on mortgage and term deposit rates?
Adrian Orr: We anticipate none, in the sense that what we are doing today is what we've been foreshadowing for quite some time and if anything, it will be supportive of current level of mortgage rates. We do continue to hope that deposit rates also rise.
Media: Okay, so you'd like to see deposit rates rise more than from their existing levels?
Adrian Orr: Yes. That would be great for those people who also save and have high higher interest rates. That also does some of the work in terms of taking demand out and it also better reflects the longer term margins that's in the banking sector. We anticipate those margins to normalise, I would say.
Media: This might be a little bit to the side of your job, but do you think banks could do more to encourage people with savings that are sitting in current accounts to shift that money to term deposits or Pie Funds? Not that there's a lot of money still sitting there not earning any decent amounts of interest.
Adrian Orr: Yeah, I think rather than appeal to banks, so I think we should appeal hopefully what I'm doing at the moment appeal to all New Zealanders to go and recheck what they're getting and whether they can get a better deal at their bank or at a different bank. Create that competitive market.
Media: Just finally, on the budget and government spending, are you happy with the amount of reprioritization in the budget versus borrowing?
Adrian Orr: Yeah, we don't allocate emotions to the government's budget. What we've seen is that as a percent of GDP, it's declining, it's being more of a friend than foe to monetary policy at this point in time and we totally understand the challenges that society is going through in the government and spending investment that is needed. So as I repeat, it's net contractionary through the forecast period and that is what most matters for our decision making on monetary policy.
Media: Governor Luke Malpass from Stuff. I was just wondering if you could talk us through in a bit more detail. You said that there are signs of some of the tightness in the labour market is starting to ease a little bit. Just wondering if you could go into a bit more detail on what sectors you are in particular seeing that in.
Adrian Orr: Yes, and thank you and I'm going to pass over to our chief economist, Paul Conway, just to chat through the array of indicators of maximum sustainable employment.
Paul Conway: Yeah, you'll find a graph in the managed policy statement somewhere. I can't find it but I'm sure you can. On which indicators, I think across the board almost all of those indicators are softening in terms of the industries that are softening more so than others. Can I refer you, Luke, to the chapter four where we have a good look at what's been happening in tourism exposed sectors and you can see ones there that really have declined with tourism and are bouncing back and ones that have been more steady on the way through.
Adrian Orr: And just for the record, it's figure 2.2 in the Monetary Policy Statement to all those out there reading it as we speak and we've seen significant shift in the vast bulk of indicators back towards what I would call a less stressed labour market situation. And especially with regard to the forward indicators. One of the most pleasing graphs or reports came through from business, as I mentioned in the opening statement, that it's no longer labour shortages that are constraining activity there as the number one problem, it is actually demand.
Paul Conway: I should also add that the labour market tends to lag, those in indicators tend to lag what's happening in product markets.
Media: Gyles Beckford from Radio New Zealand. I know you are too humble to hang the mission accomplished banner outside the front gate here, but your forecast track for the OCR implies no rate cuts before basically the beginning of 2025 with inflation only coming down into the target band in '24. Inflation has been stubborn in some particular areas. What's your approach going to be if it remains stubborn, longer OCR at this level or possibly another hike?
Adrian Orr: Yeah, so great question. Thanks Gyles. And the length or the foreseeable future length for the official cash rate view really does relate to that persistent part of what we call core inflation. We know monetary conditions are constraining activity, it's just how long they have to keep constraining activity to get that last part of the core inflation out. We've seen declines in headline inflation, we've seen small movements of decline in core inflation. We've seen inflation expectations coming off, but being a cautious central bank we are foreshadowing keeping a restrictive monetary policy for some time.
Media: Dan Brunskill from Interest.co.nz. Lots of economists looked at the migration numbers and said, "This would be inflationary, therefore rates need to go higher." You've taken a different view. Why do you think migration's not going to be inflationary?
Adrian Orr: We discuss it in the document. The first thing around it is the number one capacity constraint in the economy has been people, access to people, to work. And so the immigration has certainly eased that and the immigration has been really a large part about having the door banged down on the immigration office to say we need to bring people in. And likewise, people wanted to come in. And so we're seeing that work through and some of the indicators that we talked about in the labour market reflect that and business talks and business reports. We get it fed back a lot that it's no longer about access to labour. So that is easing. Going forward, a big part of the immigration we've seen has already happened, and again there's graphs and documents in there over the last 12 months I think it was plus 64,000 net inward migration into New Zealand.
We just see that that level will start to trend back towards what we call the pre-COVID trend level of net immigration, which is still a strong number around a plus 35,000 per annum number. But the big surge has happened and is already behind us and our projection is that surge eases off. A lot of pent-up demand, a lot of wanting to visit, revisit, [inaudible 00:16:48] New Zealand wanting to come here. So a lot of that working its way through. And a big part around migrant visas, those who may be picking those up are already here in New Zealand, so it's not new. And if anything, given the level of aggregate spending and dividing it by even more people who are actually in the country shows just how restrained consumer spending has been.
Media: And if I may ask a tangent question, you flag the debt ceiling potential crisis in this document. How are you thinking about that risk and how could it impact New Zealand?
Karen Silk: Yeah, sure, I'll answer that. So it's obviously a matter that it's something that we are monitoring closely. It's fair to say we're not experiencing any real effects today. Should it become a significant issue though, our concern's going to lie in the management of any spillover effects in the financial system. So financial stability is obviously a core focus for us here. We have the tools available to deploy if we need to resolve any market functioning, in particular liquidity. We're also actively engaged with banks existing within the system today and understanding any direct impacts that it would have from a stability perspective on them as well. So it's a bit hypothetical if you want to think about that today. It's something we want, we are monitoring and we really see this, at least initially, if something were to happen, it's a market functioning and we're ready for that.
Media: Governor Bernard Hickey from The Kākā.
Adrian Orr: [inaudible 00:18:28].
Media: You mentioned the vote and the prospects of either keeping in the official cash rate steady or taking it up 25. What do you think was the factors that might have shifted the balance to 25?
Adrian Orr: Yeah, a great question. Sitting in there with it, I know it sounds really nuanced, the vote was on [inaudible 00:18:53] or plus 25, but all of the committee were comfortable with the forward path that had interest rates hovering around 5.5%. So even those who were thinking let's hold, there was still that tightening bias. Why? Really just about the desire to wait and see how some of the monetary price may feed through and whether another hike was or not justified. What tipped the balance is really about the committee as a group getting the core confidence that we have got on top of inflation. So the 25 was there to be had and that is what swung the vote for just that level of confidence in the committee.
Media: At the last Monetary Policy Statement, I asked about the role of margin expansion in inflation. Since then the European Central Bank has done some work which seems to suggest some margin expansion and there have been some other papers. What's the Reserve Bank's view now a few months on, on how much of a role margin expansion is playing in the inflation?
Adrian Orr: I'll say two things and let Paul talk about his challenge on the research there. The first one is the data remains as poor as ever and the second one, I think it's about all even between labour and profits, wages and profits around the underlying pressure for inflation. Have I stolen everything?
Paul Conway: That pretty much covers it. I could probably add a few details. So we have had a good poke at the data burner just to be up on the risks of a profit price spiral. At the aggregate level, we don't see any evidence of an increase in profits feeding into inflation. So it's an increase in profit. So it doesn't rule out the possibility that there are markets in New Zealand that do suffer from a lack of competition and where profits may be above normal levels, but we haven't seen that increase at the aggregate level. And to the extent that there are markets suffering from a lack of competition, it's the commerce commission that are into that space.
I think of it's exactly symmetric wage price spiral, profit price spiral. We need to keep an eye on both. And actually across both of those, we are not seeing much evidence of those kind of second round effects at the moment, which is one of the reasons why we've got a bit of confidence that we're getting on top of inflation and that we'll see significant declines in inflation going forward.
Media: Lucy from Reuters, I'm just wondering, and when we starting to see some green shoots in the housing market, how concerned are you guys about the idea that maybe house prices have reached the bottom of where they're going to go? Would you like to see them go further? Are you expecting to see any rises in the coming months?
Adrian Orr: Yeah, again, great question. I'll say one thing is I'm certainly far more comfortable now that I know there's a lot more people in the country. So the net immigration story has been very quick and coming and helps explain aggregate demand and of course for housing, places to live. We now have a smaller peak to trough decline in our projections for house prices. I think we have them rather than the 20% plus, we've got them pulling up at a 17% decline. There's still a bit to go from, I think we're down at about 14 or something. But the even better news is we are no good at forecasting asset prices. So all we know is that house prices are now much closer to their sustainable levels and sustainable levels are not affordable levels. The sustainable levels are the levels at which we can better explain through the demand and supply, the rent versus buy, the invest in a home versus alternatives. The fundamentals, house prices are now much better anchored towards those. So that is a pleasing situation.
Media: The committee said that they agree that neither decision would cause unnecessary instability and output interest rates for the exchange rate. Do you want to just talk about why it wasn't worth just holding the cash rate and seeing what happens for the next six weeks and then making the move then?
Adrian Orr: Yeah. So I think that's just going back to the question that Bernard was asking about the vote. I've always reminded of a previous governor of the Bank of England who said, "If making the decision where to go next, if that is very difficult, it means you're probably in not a bad space right now." And so it was a very difficult decision, do we wait and see what's happening, or do we just move a bit more and have that additional confidence? And it really came down to the additional confidence of the majority of the committee and we all respect that. So there was no one swing variable.
Media: Tom Pullar-Strecker from Stuff. Just a couple of questions. The team members of the committee who voted against this decision, are they available to a take questions on their decision today or the future date?
Adrian Orr: You are so clever but wrong. Tom, you know the answer, don't you?
Media: I don't know.
Adrian Orr: We have a charter and what you should do, because we told you this exactly last time, we have a charter and the charter is that votes remain unanimous, not unanimous, sorry, anonymous. Anonymous. So we vote and that stays within the committee, but I'll also repeat that all committee members are always welcome to speak once the initial market excitement's out of the way. And I know that you've interviewed a few in the past.
Media: Okay, and second question, why did the [inaudible 00:24:57] Reserve Bank leave it to today? Two years after it was first asked and about six months into an ombudsman's inquiry to say that it did not pay a ransom In relation to the Accellion hack?
Adrian Orr: We've been following advice that we received from the government on whether we do or don't talk about paying a ransom. That advice has changed. The government advice now is do not pay ransom. I will repeat. We did not pay a ransom. What prompted the urgency, today we have heard a Monetary Policy Statement briefing and the headline of the post was your story saying that we're trying to hide from it.
Media: Hi there, William, TV Three. I mean, you probably get this hundreds of times, but what's your message to homeowners who are going to be re-fixing soon and they're pretty bloody scared?
Adrian Orr: The message is that we are getting on top of inflation. Inflation is the number one driver of nominal interest rates and so that should bring longer term relief to people around the level of mortgage interest rates. The second part is we don't believe today's decision should be altering the level of mortgage interest rates. Banks have been very good at front running expected changes in the official cash rate. And so all we've done is only partially meet what was already priced into the market for mortgage interest rates.
And the last bit, well second to last bit, I think we're about three quarters of the way through the mortgage rollover now. The stock of mortgages rolling over onto the higher levels. So I hope that a lot of the awareness is already on board. We've seen that without, we're still with remaining very low levels of non-performing loans and all the indicators that we've talked about in the financial stability report. But the last thing I'd say is if you really are having trouble, talk to your bank and be very open, and I know that the New Zealand Banker's Association are pumping the same message, just go and talk with you bank.
Media: Just to follow up from before Governor, in taking some responsibility for the inflationary environment which we find ourselves in on reflection, were any of your actions avoidable and do you regret any of the actions that you have taken?
Adrian Orr: I regret that the public of New Zealand has had to suffer through this high inflation period. I also acknowledge that that's been the case internationally through the story. But in terms of the decision making that we've had to make through it as a committee, no, we have talked and published our full review and I'll remind listeners that that is public and it was internationally reviewed and is available. And we talked about probably in hindsight at best, we could have started raising interest rates three to six months earlier than what we actually did. But that would've been a small bear difference with regards to the end inflation outcome.
Media: And do you feel like you've been adequately accessible, accountable and faced an acceptable level of in-depth scrutiny over what impact your decisions have had on the cost of living crisis in New Zealand?
Adrian Orr: Can I remind that it's a committee decision because I'm feeling very personally attacked here, so I will just remind you of that. It's a Monetary Policy Committee and yes I do. We are in front of the public very often and we're in front of parliament very often. In fact, at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning, I'm back in front of the Financial Expenditure Committee meeting. And we have done significant international reviews and we are one of the most, if not the most transparent central bank on planet earth.
Media: Over here, Governor. Jason Walls from ZB. I got a bit excited before and forgot to introduce myself. Just the treasury says that they are expecting New Zealand to narrowly avoid a recession. And I was just wondering what's the reserve bank's thoughts on this? Are you anticipating the same?
Adrian Orr: Paul, do you want to chat about the forward path for GDP?
Paul Conway: Sure. The forward path for GDP, table 7.1 in the document. So we are predicting a 0.3 in the March quarter and then it goes -0.2, -0.10. So definitely a soft patch in terms of GDP. I think that's a little bit south of the treasuries projections, but by the same token, I think our projections, we have inflation coming back into the band more quickly than the treasury does.
Adrian Orr: So a short, shallow period of flat, if not marginally negative economic growth.
Paul Conway: Yes.
Media: So there was two negative quarters in a-
Adrian Orr: You are on the button.
Media: So technically you are predicting a recession still.
Adrian Orr: Yes, yes.
Paul Conway: I mean technically.
Adrian Orr: It's under the definition of two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Yes.
Media: Yes. But you don't appear that concerned about that?
Adrian Orr: Because the -0.1, +0.1, well within any standard error of confidence of being able to forecast quarterly GDP. So we are concerned that we are going to go through a soft path. What you wish to call it really comes down to how you want to write your story.
Media: Jenée again from the Herald, just interested in your view on the budget and I guess a few more comments on that. Of course, the nature of expenditure has an impact on inflation. Could you provide a bit more commentary around how the type of expenditure, as well as the size of it has affected what you think the influence will be on inflation?
Adrian Orr: Yeah. So there's two main big aggregate parts to the government spending. By the way, we have to remember about the tax side as well. They take it away as well as giveth. So I suppose the most volatile variable in the projected government spending is actually government investment. And what we're looking at there is a projection equivalent to about 1.5% of GDP over the next few years, which is largely related to cyclone recovery. I use that phrase horizontal construction. It's about rebuilding roads, rails, bridges, getting infrastructure back into place, water, so on and so forth. And that is an equivalent to about 1.5% of GDP net expenditure.
But government investment is dwarfed by government spending, government consumption, and that's just about keeping the engine of government going, health, education, so on and so forth. All of the bits and pieces. And that, the government consumption, the bigger part is declining as a proportion of GDP and it's come from a very high level of COVID support levels and it's come off significantly. And so that is where you get the contractionary impact of fiscal policy on overall aggregate demand. Is that what you're hoping?
Media: Sure. I guess the word contractionary can be confusing for people because it's relative, right? So it's contractionary compared to a period of unprecedented nature.
Adrian Orr: It means it's not putting net upward pressure on inflation. In fact, it's putting net downward pressure. Have I said that correctly?
Paul Conway: It's disinflationary.
Adrian Orr: Yeah.
Media: Hi, Matthew Brockett from Bloomberg. Just another quick question about the OCR track. Your peak is obviously a little lower than what the market was expecting or looking for, and I'm just wondering if there was any concern on the committee about what that might signal to markets, whether they could get ahead of themselves and start pricing in rate cuts sooner than you want to see them happen and engineer some sort of a monetary easing.
Karen Silk: Yeah, I'll take that. The track reflects the underlying beliefs and assumptions that we have been talking about today and how that plays out. In terms of the track it also reflects the belief that the committee has that we need to hold those rates at that level for longer. It is no different to the track that we have shown since probably November last year. So we'll signal to the market. The market expectations changed and the market expectations are a reflection of their own position in relation it would appear to both the immigration numbers and also their interpretation of the budget as well. So the market will do what the market will do. That is a reflection of our position.
Adrian Orr: What I'm very proud to say is the level of confidence in the committee about our starting point. So whilst we've seen and always talk about new things that are arriving in the economy, it's quite nice to see some of the things we are hoping would already be here actually be here. And that is about the lower surprise on GDP, the decline in inflation and all of the indicators that suggests that the interest sensitive parts of the New Zealand economy are yielding, are slowing and inflation pressures coming out. Yes, there are many other things in the future that we can also be concerned, but I would say that that is the core confidence that the committee has.
Karen Silk: Matthew, I just have one more thing just in relation to mortgage rates. Our belief is that the position that we have put forward today continues to underpin those mortgage rates and that's the position we are looking for moving forward.
Media: Dan, from Interest again. Just a quick follow up on the recession. The message from the Reserve Bank has previously been taken to mean a recession is required to bring inflation under control. Now you're forecasting recession so shallow, it might not happen at all. Is your view now that we don't require a recession per se?
Adrian Orr: I love the dangerous sound bites because that's what sells a newspaper and is and media and the click. What we've always said and what we say over many, many pages rather than a soundbite, is that demand in the New Zealand economy needed to slow and it needed to slow to at least match the ability of the economy to supply that demand. What we're seeing is that demand slowing to match supply now. And that's where we're very pleased that that's coming on. Whether that means a +0.2 or a -0.2 GDP is three to four quarters ahead, is in the wind. It meant that we need slower spending and we are seeing slower spending. And that is giving us the confidence that monetary policy is doing its job, which should give all of the householders confidence that inflation is easing and mortgage interest rates are peaking and so on and so forth. That is our job.
Media: Governor, you said last year that the economy needed to cool its jets. Do you think that this Monetary Policy Statement demonstrates that we have cooled our jets?
Adrian Orr: Yes. Yes, I think so. I mean, one of the more exciting graphs amongst the many exciting graphs in there was just the high frequency electronic card spending. In nominal terms that's going up. You adjust it for inflation, it starts to fall, and you're divided by the number of people spending and it plummets. So that shows that, and that's even with more people in the country and the tourism spending and so on. People are cooling their jets and they are having to meet other payments.
Media: And just thinking a bit longer term about productivity and longer term inflation pressures, we've seen this migration surprise, population growth surprise in the last six months or so. I noticed in there there's a chart showing government investment and infrastructure, the long term investment actually curves downwards over the next five or six years. Do you think that enough is being done in the underlying infrastructure, the workings of the economy investment to ensure that we get the productivity growth that would keep inflation low in the long run?
Adrian Orr: So I'll go to one of our New Zealand gurus on productivity. Inflation can always be low and stable around any level of productivity. It just means what level of economic growth can we afford? And so higher productivity, we can afford higher growth without it being inflationary. So it's not so much a challenge for monetary policy, but it certainly is a challenge for the wealth of people in the country and we remain a capital shallow nation. And Paul, your moment?
Paul Conway: Yeah, we are a capital shallow nation. There's a myriad of influences that impact on productivity. So as you know, Bernard, I've written about this plenty. There's a lot of reasons why we're a low productivity economy. I think there is a pathway out of that for New Zealand, especially the way technology is evolving. I think that's partially up to the private sector and partially up to the public sector as well. From a monetary policy perspective, we don't bank on the supply side coming to the rescue. Our demand, our [inaudible 00:38:28] affects inflation. But yeah, a faster potential growth into the future, it would at the margin make that balancing enact a bit easier for us, not to mention increased wealth, prosperity, and wellbeing in the economy.
Adrian Orr: Cool.
Karen Silk: One last question or are we done?
Adrian Orr: It looks like we're done. Thank you very, very much. And again, thank you Monetary Policy Committee for all of your hard work over X weeks and the economics team of Te Pūtea Matua. Please read, please enjoy. Please absorb. Kia ora, meitaki ma'ata.