Late-2000s recession in Australasia

Great Recession in Oceania is an article on the recession affecting the Oceanic region. This includes, Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific countries.

Australia avoided technical recession due to a number of factors: government stimulus spending; its proximity to the booming Chinese economy and the related mining boom kept growth ticking over throughout the worst of the global conditions. In fact, sources such as the IMF and the Reserve Bank of Australia had predicted Australia was well positioned to weather the crisis with minimal disruption, sustaining more than 2% GDP growth in 2009 (as many Western nations went into recession). In the same year the World Economic Forum ranked Australia's banking system the fourth best in the world, while the Australian dollar's 30% drop was seen as a boon for trade, shielding the country from the crisis and helping to slow growth and consumption. Australia's recession affected New Zealand's economy as Australia was New Zealand's biggest export market.

Some analysts had predicted the continuing decline of trade in 2009 could put the economy into recession for the first time in 17 years. However these initial fears were proved largely unfounded as the Australian economy avoided recession and the unemployment rate peaked at a much lower rate than had been predicted.

The New Zealand Treasury defines "recession" as "consecutive falls in real GDP." The department said that New Zealand's real GDP fell 3.3% between the December 2007 quarter and the March 2008 quarter, and that this start, before any other OECD nation, was the result of domestic factors. It said that New Zealand's recession was among the first to finish and was one of the shallowest. New Zealand Institute of Economic Research's quarterly survey showed New Zealand's economy contracted 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

There was a substantial number of finance company collapses between 2006 and 2012. Housing starts in New Zealand fell 20 percent in June 2008, the lowest levels since 1986. Excluding apartments, approvals dropped 13 percent from May. Approvals in the year ended June fell 12 percent from a year earlier. Second-quarter approvals dropped 19 percent. The figures suggested a decrease in construction and economic growth. House sales fell 42 percent in June from a year earlier.

The New Zealand Treasury concluded that the country's economy had contracted for a second quarter based on economic indicators, putting New Zealand in a recession. New Zealand's central bank cut rates by half a percent arguing the economy was in recession. New Zealand's GDP declined by 0.2 percent in the second quarter putting the country in its first recession in a decade.

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