Paul Glass: Why business confidence has fallen

New Zealand business confidence has fallen to levels last seen during the Global Financial Crisis. While the magnitude of the decline is hard to explain, as economic conditions are clearly far better than during the GFC period, the direction is far easier to understand. Some commentators have blamed the decline on businesses not getting the Government they expected or wanted.

I think that is far too simplistic and what we are seeing is that businesses are growing increasingly concerned about the coalition Government’s lack of clear strategy and poor execution of policy. We are clearly experiencing management by an unwieldy committee …