New Zealand businesses are in desperate need of some good news, something more than a plethora of press releases commenting on business, consumer and investor confidence.
In the past few weeks, a steady stream of surveys have been released with contradictory messages for nearly all parts of our business community.
The high value of the dollar is not helping the export sector; and the rebuilding of Christchurch, with its associated expected growth, seems the only positive prospect on the horizon - if only it could get started.
As recently as yesterday, Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard noted in his official cash rate statement that a recovery in building activity would strengthen as repairs and reconstruction picked up later this year.
But such strengthening would need to be underpinned by other factors, such as available and affordable housing, the importance of which Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee, at least, is only too aware.
Many state houses in the city are being left unoccupied and the beleaguered Christchurch City Council has only now decided that requiring rates from the owners of red-zoned houses may not be fair.
All of this impacts on small and medium-sized businesses in the South - and of course it is they who employ the majority of the region's workers, and it is on them that genuine economic activity and recovery depends.
They will not have been much buoyed by recent reports from Business and Economic Research Ltd (Berl) and the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER).
Both were gloomy about the state of the economy and the slowness of the recovery.
Mr English has not been helpful in his devotion to duty - talking down any glimpses of economic wellbeing.
His case has not been strengthened by the Treasury's continuing over-optimistic forecasts for growing tax revenue.
Therein lies the heart of the contradictions.
Digging down through the data shows that, throughout the country, business owners are decidedly more optimistic about their own prospects than those of the country.
How can that be? A recent BNZ confidence survey showed business sentiment had increased again, according to clients polled by the bank.
This month, 405 clients responded to the emailed survey, up from 355 in March and 399 in April.
A net 34% of those surveyed are positive about the economy, up from 27% last month.
If they are right, that is suggestive of the potential for good growth in the economy in the near future.
Accountants are reporting improving times for their clients, residential real estate continues to improve and manufacturers are more upbeat than pessimistic.
However, farmers remain cautious about next season's returns - and retailers are circumspect.
During the past three years, there has been a clear regular saw-tooth pattern in the BNZ survey, reflecting periods of optimism about growth followed by high caution, more often than not associated with concerns about debt crises offshore.
Dr Bollard warned yesterday that the global outlook remained of concern.
Also, the dollar had stayed at elevated levels despite recent falls in commodity prices.
Criticism about the handling of the economy by both the Government and the Reserve Bank is growing louder by the day.
The Government would be wise to heed at least certain calls for action, some of which are coming from the exporters and manufacturers so critical to rebalancing the New Zealand economy.
Such calls relate to the creation of conditions for much-needed stimulus, which unfortunately seems to slip further away with each day.
What was hoped would start in earnest in the last quarter of last year is now being pushed out as far as the third quarter of 2013 by some observers.
Business leaders may perceive their own enterprises out-performing the rest of the economy, but perception can only take the economy so far.
This economy needs stimulus, and if it comes down to something as simple as a carpenter picking up a hammer to fix one of the 500 quake-damaged state houses in Christchurch to help generate ongoing confidence, then it is the Government's job to see that happens.
Too much is at stake in the South Island economy for it to continue ignoring what is blatantly obvious: the recovery must be built on a real economy of increased productivity, not illusions delivered by confidence surveys.
