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A man with an oversized head is jogging on a treadmill. The background features an upward-pointing arrow, symbolising growth or progress.
Image: The Spinoff

OPINIONPoliticsJanuary 27, 2025

The problem with ‘going for growth’

A man with an oversized head is jogging on a treadmill. The background features an upward-pointing arrow, symbolising growth or progress.
Image: The Spinoff

The prime minister reckons chasing economic growth is the answer to what ails us. But there are many reasons to be sceptical, argues Gareth Hughes.

“2025 is all about going for economic growth,” says the prime minister. It was the central focus of his state of the nation address last week and he’s rejigging his ministers’ titles and the public science and foreign investment bodies to “unleash it”.

Having been the goal of every government since day dot, it’s about the most unoriginal clarion call a politician could ever make. The real question is – what growth, where and benefiting who?

Economic growth is a bit like running. You can run faster but if you’re running faster in no direction you are simply getting nowhere fast or worse, arriving quickly at a place you don’t want to be.

If the New Zealand economy was a runner, we’d be limping along with a bad stitch. Last year, 2,500 businesses went under, unemployment is at a four-year high and, excluding the Covid shock, we are in the deepest recession since 1991. Across a range of economic measures, the Economist has us coming in near the back of the pack at 33rd out of 37 OECD countries.

Is more economic growth the answer to what ails us? There are many reasons to be sceptical. Economic growth is measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and it is a very narrow view of economic and national progress. High economic growth is not the same thing as a strong economy. 

We have known about the limitations of GDP for decades – oil spills, car crashes and new vape stores all boost it. GDP doesn’t take into account inequality, distribution of wealth or what we value as a society. GDP “measures everything except that which is worthwhile”, said Robert Kennedy 50 years ago

We should ask ourselves if GDP equals progress, how come the “richest countries” also have the highest rates of loneliness and biggest mental health crises? Even the economist who invented GDP, Simon Kuznets, warned it wasn’t a good tool to measure the progress of a country or the wellbeing of its citizens. 

Governments have focused forever on boosting GDP in the hope a rising economic tide lifts all boats. In reality the fruits of economic growth haven’t been shared fairly and decades of evidence has debunked trickle-down economics. WEAll Aotearoa’s research economist Paul Dalziel poses an interesting thought experiment – what do you think would happen to child poverty rates in a country that was 50% richer?

We did this trial here. New Zealand real per capita GDP grew about 50% between 1984 and 2014. What happened to child poverty in that generation? The absolute measure of child poverty was no lower in 2014 than in 1984 and the relative measure of child poverty was twice as high in 2014 despite 30 years of economic growth!

A quarry site with several large trucks and excavators conducting mining operations. The machinery and roads are highlighted in bright orange against the rocky terrain. The area shows layers of earth being excavated.
A mining pit in Brazil (Photo: Getty Images; additional design The Spinoff)

Despite the limitations, the government is doubling down on going for growth. Christopher Luxon says “when it comes to economic growth, we’ve slipped into a culture of saying no”. He wants us to say yes to more tourists, more mines in the conservation estate, more oil wells and, oddly specifically, more concerts at Eden Park.

We’ve chased economic growth for decades and the way we’ve gone about it has come at great cost. New Zealand’s unswimmable rivers, toxic mine sites, migrant exploitation and precarious, unsatisfying, low-paid jobs are testament to this fact. It’s the kind of mindset that led resources minister Shane Jones to say “if there is a mining opportunity and it’s impeded by a blind frog, goodbye, Freddie”. By focusing on the quantity rather than the quality of economic growth we end up squeezing the natural world and our people to increase the measure. 

This isn’t an argument to shrink our economy. At the moment our society is entirely structured around an ever-rising GDP and New Zealand’s deep recession is causing real pain in our communities. It’s like running faster and faster on a treadmill – if you slow down too much you risk catastrophically tripping off. 

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We need to remember that even when the economy is growing quickly or described as a “rockstar”, too many New Zealanders are caught in cycles of poverty and despair, unable to find warm and safe housing or to buy sufficient food for the whole family. Economic growth accompanied by worsening social outcomes and climate catastrophe can hardly be considered progress.

We need to think smarter than just “unleashing economic growth”. There is a real risk New Zealand could weaken our long-term prospects by mindlessly chasing it. Every coal mine invested in over a renewable energy project locks us into a sunset industry and a hotter future. Focusing on tourism can perpetuate a low-wage economy and our lack of a capital gains tax, which almost every domestic and international economist recommends, leads to unproductive housing speculation. No country ever got rich selling houses to each other.

Every child growing up in poverty, every young couple locked out of housing, every scientist leaving New Zealand out of work and every dirty river undermines a stronger, healthier economy in the future.

The final word should go to Simon Kuznets, the creator of GDP, who nailed it in 1962: “Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between its costs and return, and between the short and the long term. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.”

Nicola Willis, the new minister for economic growth, should ask, “Are we running faster towards a better future, or more of the same?”

Gareth Hughes is the director of WEAll Aotearoa and is a political commentator and former Green MP.

Keep going!
Wayne Brown in a t-shirt and Wayne Brown in a suit, wearing sunglasses and hats, imposed on background of the pool at Karanga Plaza under five large yellow stars.
It’s bloody Browny’s pool innit (Image Anna Rawhiti-Connell)

PoliticsJanuary 25, 2025

Browny’s pool was a gamble and it’s paid off

Wayne Brown in a t-shirt and Wayne Brown in a suit, wearing sunglasses and hats, imposed on background of the pool at Karanga Plaza under five large yellow stars.
It’s bloody Browny’s pool innit (Image Anna Rawhiti-Connell)

The pool is a summery delight for swimmers and a smart move from the mayor.

Last week I walked through Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter, commando and braless.

After smugly setting off that morning for my second swim at the Karanga Plaza pool, dubbed Browny’s Pool by mayor Wayne Brown, I realised I’d made the mistake of leaving my underwear for the day in the car after driving there with my togs already on.

I had a brief panic in the dinky red-speckled changing shed that alarmingly resembles a magician’s closet in which one might be made to disappear, then decided all I needed to do was match the audacity of the pool itself. Heeding the warnings about seabather’s eruption, I peeled off my wet togs, pulled on my shorts and t-shirt and marched confidently to my car past morning commuters sucking on their coffees.

Despite being surrounded by water, it wasn’t until late last year that Auckland got its first open-air seawater harbour pool. After years of nurturing the small amount of pride the beautiful Parnell Baths allow us and looking over the ditch jealously at Sydney, a city of many sea pools, Auckland has finally added the couple of inches in stature that come with getting something ambitious, attractive and decidedly urban, done.

Left side: A small red wooden changing shed with a slatted roof. Right side: a towel and pair of women's togs hanging inside a the red speckled changing shed, with light casting shadows.
Inside and outside the magician’s closet changing shed at Browny’s pool (Image: Anna Rawhiti-Connell)

In full view of a city alive with people, industry and marine activity, swimming in the pool exposes you in the best way. I felt very free swimming in Browny’s pool. My first trip to the pool was on Christmas day with my family. We trekked over Te Wero on that overcast day and threw our bodies, stuffed full of ham, into the water. While there has always been plenty to do in Auckland, the idea of being able to cool off without a trip to a beach on Christmas day felt like a redefinition of leisure in the central city and our relationship with the water surrounding us. The water was warmer than it had been in the sea over the summer, which I assume is science, and while it’s not crystal clear, it’s perfectly pleasant, and I didn’t emerge slicked or smelly.

An outdoor swimming area with lane dividers is set in a harbor, positioned adjacent to a modern building and a white pedestrian bridge. The water is calm under a lightly clouded sky.
The 33-metre lanes in the Karanga Plaza Harbour Pool for lap swimming. (Image: Anna Rawhiti-Connell)

Swimming laps in the pool was a revelation. I debated whether to wear goggles and a cap for fear of looking too much like an indoor swimmer. In the end, with no qualms about swimming in the harbour despite having never done it before, I decided I didn’t need to see clearly in it, just in case.

In big cities worldwide, people walk down the street with their laundry. They find the green spaces they don’t have because they live in apartments in communal spaces like parks. With its sprawling suburbs, in some ways, Auckland has locked the communal, mundane and necessary parts of life out of view and out of the central city. Amenities like supermarkets have only been added to the central city in the last two decades, finally recognising that people live there and like to make and eat food occasionally. To have a place where it’s free to swim for exercise, another sometimes mundane necessity, in a city where you’re unavoidably among other people feels like an extension of that recognition. Being in your togs in the middle of town and walking to the car braless is completely normal, actually.

A woman (the writer) with short, light hair smiles while standing outdoors. Sunlight beams from above. They wear a casual shirt. Behind them is a palm tree and other greenery, with modern buildings in the background.
Braless and fancy-free after my swim at Browny’s pool (Image: Anna Rawhiti-Connell)

The mayor has claimed the pool as an achievement, ostentatiously lending his name to it. He was inspired by Aarhus Havnebadet, the world’s largest seawater bath,  after a visit to Denmark. He no doubt returned from his Scandi sojourn and cracked the whip on getting something…anything…done that shows he means it when he says he wants to give more of the waterfront back to Aucklanders.

There’s some risk to tying himself so closely to the pool, especially when your last name is Brown, your city is prone to multiple warnings about water quality, and your constituents frequently grumble about having to swim in poo. When the pool was declared unsafe for swimming on Boxing Day, Brown shook his fist at the clouds by doubting the accuracy of Safe Swim’s modelling, invoking the dreaded spectre of the Auckland floods, which he says he was blamed for.

There are other risks in attaching your name to something as a politician, too. What if it’s a flop, and no one uses it? What if someone is injured or drowns there? What if you’ve misjudged how you’re perceived and how much affection people have for you and can not get away with colloquially naming the thing after yourself? Few politicians can get away with that. Chippy’s pool or Luxo’s pool would sink like a cringe-covered stone to the bottom of the sea. 

Wayne Brown, wearing sunglasses smiles by the Karanga Plaza Harbour Pool on the left; on the right, Wayne Brown wearing a safety harness, stands with arms outstretched smiling inside a stadium.
Better watch out Browny, we’ve now got several photos of you looking very happy.

Brown hard-launched the pool to the public, and it was deemed Browny’s pool with an Instagram video of him swimming in it. Wisely, he dialled down the strange sense of intimacy watching the video conjures by wearing swimming shorts and not speedos. In 2023, The Spinoff asked, “Has Wayne Brown ever looked this happy?” after he walked along the roof of Eden Park, kicking a ball, to welcome the world to the Fifa World Cup. His pool video further proves the outlandish theory that Brown might be a happy man. It’s also funny.

He and his team have discovered that the secret sauce to making Brown work on social media is letting him be who he is. His temperament and blunt speech, once a political liability, have been embraced by Aucklanders. His approval rating is high. He’s in step with what feels like a broad pendulum swing away from the safety-conscious years of the pandemic. That’s clever political positioning in the city that copped the worst of the lockdowns. He’s been ahead of prime minister Christopher Luxon in calling for less “nojo” and red tape, and as Luxon continues to struggle with authenticity in a communications era where that’s crucial, Brown seems to have found his way of being. His latest funny Instagram post? A call for a grown-up conversation about safety and risk. 

 

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For Browny, the pool proves he’s more politically astute and attuned to the zeitgeist than many people thought he was when first elected. For swimmers, the pool is just a pool — a summery delight and another reason to feel like Auckland is growing up and making the most of one of its greatest assets. Five stars.

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