Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'm confident for the economy in 2026

If you weren’t already feeling confident about 2026, I've got two reasons you should.

At least two major retail banks see signs of an economic recovery and we have a new Reserve Bank Governor.

No pressure on Anna Breman, but she hasn’t arrived a day too soon given that the old lot were still managing to stuff things up until literally the last chance they had, with Christian Hawkesby saying the wrong thing and sending wholesale market rates, and therefore fixed term interest rates, up by 30 basis points.

To be fair to him, he was only the fill in. And if we’re honest with ourselves it's more hope than certainty that the Swedish import will be any better than Hawkesby or Adrian Orr.

But then again you could argue it really would be hard to be worse given the last four years.

But we’re here for the good news.

The good news is that Anna Breman arriving as the new broom coincides with ASB, and now Kiwibank, all saying it’s on.

They’re seeing signs of a recovery for 2026.

Kiwibank’s call arguably matters more than the others because they’ve been the gloomiest.

They were calling for more rate cuts than the Reserve Bank was prepared for. They were warning it was more grim out there than the Wellington bankers realised.

They were right.

So here’s hoping they are right again when they say sales are already up, and when sales go up, everything else follows.

House prices are up 2-3% next year. The economy is growing 2.4% and then it’s 3% the next year.

I don't know about you but that combo - a new person in charge of the central bank and growing consensus that the recovery is now on - is probably the best Christmas present I could wish for.

Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show. This article was sourced from Newstalk ZB.