WELLINGTON: National is choosing to ignore more than the canary in the mine with New Zealand’s merchandise exports in the year to July 2015, being down $2.1 billion on the corresponding point in 2014.
“No amount of flim flam can hide the fact that the downturn in dairy has blown a $3.8B hole in New Zealand’s physical exports,” says New Zealand First Leader and Member of Parliament Rt Hon Winston Peters.
“While there’s good news in beef, wine, horticulture and some manufactured exports, the trajectory is heading down when it is meant to be heading up. Moreover, all of a sudden National is extolling the benefits of a lower dollar which, given their support when the dollar was heading to parity with Australia’s, shows just how bereft of policy they are.
“National’s response has been woeful. No talk about doubling the value of primary exports by 2025. Instead we get ‘there’s nothing to see here, move on’ because our premier export dairy is talked down as being a ‘small part of the overall economy’. “Dairy matters, so does wood and so does crude oil.
“The solution is not to be found in tourism, which while a good industry, suffers from the fact that almost as many Kiwis take trips abroad as visit here. You cannot count the income from 3 million visitors when Kiwis take large amounts of money out on 2.35 million trips abroad
“Since this government seems to respect bankers so much, will National heed Morgan Stanley’s Manoj Pradhan, who warns, ‘crises are highly non-linear events and ruling them out isn’t wise’,” says Mr Peters said.
