Roosting chorus Wednesday Oct 28

TLDR version: The economy keeps outperforming expectations as jobs numbers and incomes rose again in September, while small businesses also increased employment and sales. But we’re no closer to a Government, with a Labour-Green arrangement likely late on Friday. The Electoral Commission will release the pre-specials referendum results at 2pm on Friday.

The glass keeps looking more than half full

There was more good economic news locally today, with real-time-ish jobs, incomes and small business activity better than most expected.

Stats NZ reported jobs numbers rose again in September to 2.185m from 2.178m in August, although the 7,266 increase for the month was about half the rise seen between August and September last year. Still, it was an increase. Most of the jobs came from the public sector in public administration and safety.

Household incomes also rose again, with quarterly gross earnings rising to $35.261b in the September quarter from $32.764b in the June quarter and $33.577b in the same quarter a year ago.

“The lift in jobs across all regions for the September month coincides with Auckland moving to alert level 2 on August 31 and the rest of New Zealand moving to alert level 1 later in September.” Stats NZ Economic Stats Manager Sue Chapman

Xero reported from its small business insights data report September it also saw increased sales and employment.

Xero said the average number of jobs in the small business sector rose by 0.9% after falling in August by 1.4%. Small business employment was now sitting just 1.8% below pre-crisis levels. Overall, small business revenue in New Zealand was up 3.4% year-on-year in September 2020.

Meanwhile, still in political limbo land…

Green Co-Leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson again said today they were on track to finish talks with Labour on Friday about a Government-forming agreement, before putting any deal to Green delegates in a multi-hour conference call. (Stuff)

Gerry Brownlee faces a caucus vote on about deputy leadership of National at a caucus meeting next week, with some MPs saying behind his back they were unhappy with his performance as campaign manager, which also saw him lose his Ilam seat, but return to Parliament on the list. He plans to stay on the list. For now. (Stuff)

Elsewhere in geo-politics, the global economy and business…

Britain’s Information Commissioners’ Office issued a report this morning after a two-year investigation into the use of personal data by credit referencing agencies (CRAs) Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. It alleged that Experian, which also operates in New Zealand, had been sharing the personal information of millions of people without consent and must stop its practices or face a £20m fine.

The office decided not to take any action against Equifax (formerly VedaAdvantage in NZ) and TransUnion, who it said had made similar failings, because they had changed practices and withdrawn products.

“The investigation found how the three CRAs were trading, enriching and enhancing people’s personal data without their knowledge. This processing resulted in products which were used by commercial organisations, political parties or charities to find new customers, identify the people most likely to be able to afford goods and services, and build profiles about people. The ICO found that significant ‘invisible’ processing took place, likely affecting millions of adults in the UK. It is ‘invisible’ because the individual is not aware that the organisation is collecting and using their personal data. This is against data protection law.” ICO

Heads up: The Privacy Commissioner’s Office, the big and small banks (ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Westpac, Kiwibank, TSB, Heartland), competitors (Equifax, Illion (formerly Dun and Bradstreet) and Centrix), the credit card firms (Visa and Mastercard), the Banking Ombudsman Scheme, Consumer NZ, MBIE and the Commerce Commission.

Further questions: Are the same things happening here? Do we also have laws against this? Has Equifax made changes here? Is this issue being investigated here? Who would buy this data from credit reference agencies here? Add any others you have in the comments and I’ll try to follow up. Or I welcome any answers you have, with links to sourcing.

Ngā mihi

Bernard