Robert MacCulloch: NZ's Big News Story should be "Treasury Pre-Election Update shows plummeting consumption per capita"

I can't make sense of the Finance Minister's statements today regards the "Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update" by the NZ Treasury. He claims the country is in better shape than expected and that the "forecasts showed New Zealand would avoid recession, with wages keeping ahead of inflation".

So here's my question - GDP growth up to June 2024 is forecast to be just over 1% (the forecast has been raised slightly from 1.0 to 1.3%). On the other hand, it is also stated immigration is now running at 100,000 a year, corresponding to an increase in 2% of our entire population. But if total GDP is only growing at a bit over 1% and the population is growing at 2%, then GDP per capita must be declining (since GDP per capita equals total GDP over population size).

In other words, from an individual perspective, we are entering a deep recession. But the Finance Minister says Kiwis are getting better off since our inflation-adjusted incomes are rising. Can a journalist please ask Robertson how GDP per capita, which measures the average income of a Kiwi, is falling based on his own Pre-Election Economic Update whilst at the same time tells 5 million Kiwis that we're getting better off?


Click image to view

If you don't believe me, then take a look at the graph of GDP per capita on page 7 of the Treasury's Pre-election report (see link below). What really blows my mind is the following figure - in particular the black line that shows the amount Kiwis are consuming on a per capita basis, after adjusting for cost-of-living changes:

It's set to plummet at a rate not far off from what occurred during the first lock-down in 2020. And consumption is a good measure of living standards. According to former Chair of the Reserve Bank Board, Arthur Grimes, consumption is the best predictor of well-being and we are meant to have a "well-being" government. Kiwis are going backwards.

Sources:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/497824/election-2023-pre-election-economic-and-fiscal-update-release-government-books-in-better-shape-than-expected

https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2023-09/prefu23.pdf

https://motu-www.motu.org.nz/wpapers/16_12.pdf 

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi - where this article was sourced.