Photo / Mark MitchellIt’s because this week Luxon has demonstrated how much he will struggle to campaign later this year. The conflict is likely to mean higher inflation, potentially higher interest rates, lower house prices and lower economic growth – a toxic cocktail of bad economic news. The Budget forecasts, which will be finalised next month for release in May, are likely to show, yet again, a worsening economic outlook. With that in mind, the fear isn’t just that things are bad or that they could get worse. In fact, it’s worse than that; in an economic sense, things will, very likely, get worse, and this week caucus clearly saw that Luxon will struggle to argue his way out of that corner.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 06, 2026 19:14 UTC