PM doesn’t know what GDP is!

Newshub reports:

The Prime Minister has corrected the record after saying in an interview this morning that she was “pretty pleased” in response to a question about unreleased GDP numbers.

When asked by Newstalk ZB if she’d seen them she replied: “We’ll be putting out the audited and final results soon”.

When asked again if she’d seen them she said “I had a hint yes”, despite the latest GDP figures not due to be released by Statistics New Zealand until Thursday.

Asked if the figures were good Ms Ardern said “I’m pretty pleased”.

Later in the morning Ms Ardern told Newshub she wasn’t referring to the upcoming second-quarter GDP figures in the interview, but the unaudited financial accounts that she does have sight of.

“I accept he was talking about one thing, I was talking about another,” she said.

“Of course a Prime Minister does not get the GDP figures, nor should they, those are held by Statistics. I could not comment on them because I had not seen them,” Ms Ardern said.

“I of course was referencing something I had sight of rather than something I did not.”

But Ms Ardern’s office described her comments as “a mistake”.

“She has not seen, because we do not receive, the GDP numbers.”

The New Zealand Dollar gained off the back of her comments, which she said “absolutely should not be the case”.

So the Deputy Prime Minister got confused between the GDP figures and the Crown Accounts.

To be fair that is a mistake any DJ could make. We shouldn’t expect them to know as much as a first year economics student.

Sadly thought the DJ’s comments actually had a real world impact. Companies lost and made money because they thought what she said was trustworthy.

The highlight is the PM suggesting she wasn’t confused, but Mike Hosking was:

Ardern told reporters later this morning she had been “obviously” referring to unaudited financial accounts.

“I accept I was talking about one thing and he was talking about another.”

She denied she was confused.

“I know what I was talking about. Unfortunately the question I was being asked was something else.”

So Ardern says that she knew what she was talking about but the problem is that Hosking asked the wrong question!

I guess this is to be expected after Sunday’s performance where she knew all the questions in advance!

Just so there is no confusion, here’s the transcript (done by me, so you can trust it) of what Hosking and Ardern said:

MH: The GDP numbers on Thursday, have you seen them or got a hint?

JA: Sorry the, sorry the

MH: GDP numbers, Thursday

JA: We’ll be putting out the audited final numbers soon

MH: So you have seen them?

JA: I had a hint, yes

MH: Are they good?

JA: I’m pretty pleased

MH: Because you need at least 0.8 or 0.9 to rectify the 0.5 don’t you

JA: Setting expectations already

MH: No because what we need is, you had 0.5 in the first quarter, and if you start annualising at 0.5 you’re running at two and anything at two is not acceptable you need to be in threes

JA: You’re going to understand why I’m going to leave that to the Minister of Finance to do that job

What is amazing is that the PM claims she wasn’t confused yet Hosking made it clear four times he was talking about GDP not Crown Accounts. Even if she misheard him the first two times, the reference to 0.5 in first quarter etc should have made it very clear he wasn’t talking crown accounts.

The only part that made sense was Ardern saying she should leave it to the Minister of Finance.