The Prime Minister says that the business confidence surveys are a "snapshot of opinion".

Yesterday, a new survey showed New Zealand business confidence has fallen to more than a 10-year low in the June quarter, with manufacturers the gloomiest sector.

A seasonally adjusted net 31 per cent of firms surveyed in the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research's quarterly survey of business opinion expect economic conditions to deteriorate during the coming months, compared to a net 28 per cent who were pessimistic in the prior quarter.

Business confidence was at its lowest level since March 2009.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Jamie Mackay that she takes these surveys into account alongside our economic settings.

"We've got solid projected growth relative to other countries. Our unemployment levels are near-record low. And when you look at the share markets and exporters and how they are tracking and also profitability of our business, all of those are tracking well." 

She says this is a sense of the "horizon". She thinks trade wars will likely be having an impact on our confidence as well.

Ardern denied that she thinks that these surveys are negative because of an anti-Labour sentiment. 

She also dismissed claims the billion tree planting programme's eating into productive farmland. Ardern says when the programme's complete, there'll still be plenty of room for cows and sheep.

"The goals that we have would see roughly three per cent of perhaps marginal land being converted over. We're talking a much smaller conversion rate then I've heard talked about." 

She says that they intend to leave land that is for land production alone.