Make a submission to the manufacturing inquiry – today!

Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, November 30th, 2012 - 28 comments
Categories: economy, employment, greens, jobs, labour, mana, nz first - Tags: ,

Over the past four years 40,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost (and over a thousand manufacturing companies have shut up shop). The government is in full denial, so the opposition parties have set up their own inquiry.

The Labour Party, the Green Party, New Zealand First ,and Mana are holding a Parliamentary inquiry into the crisis in manufacturing following National Party MPs recent blocking a motion for a select committee inquiry. The parties agree that real change is needed to protect and grow manufacturing in New Zealand, and that the current National Government has failed to provide any leadership on this issue.

Unlike National, the parties are not prepared to stand by while 40,000 manufacturing jobs are lost and pretend that nothing is wrong.

Today is the last day for submissions (though I’m guessing that stuff that arrives in the weekend would also be considered). Please submit if you can.

28 comments on “Make a submission to the manufacturing inquiry – today! ”

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  1. BM 1
    30 November 2012 at 1:40 pm

    I’m struggling a bit with the statement

    The number of businesses in manufacturing has reduced by over 1,300, or 6.1%

  2. The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 2
    30 November 2012 at 2:07 pm

    My submission is that we need a series of five-year plans, each dealing with all aspects of development: capital goods (those used to produce other goods, like coal, iron, and machinery), consumer goods (e.g. chairs, carpets, and irons), agriculture, transportation, communications, health, education, and welfare. However, the emphasis should be varied from plan to plan, although generally the emphasis should be on power (electricity), capital goods, and agriculture. Efforts should be made, especially in the Third Plan, to move industry eastward to make it safer from attack.

    • r0b 2.1
      30 November 2012 at 2:19 pm

      I just had a friend lose his job at Hillside TGF. Maybe your little joke will cheer him up.

      • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 2.1.1
        30 November 2012 at 2:26 pm

        I know jokes got me through the tough times when I lost my position as a cooper.

    • vto 2.2
      30 November 2012 at 2:30 pm

      ah yes, centrally directed. Very witty and clever and a reference to Soviet era ways.

      Of course our nation under this National government is the most centrally controlled and directed, commun1st, that it has ever been. John Key and Stalin would make good bedfellows.

      Good submission gormless. Right in line with your comrades in power.

      • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 2.2.1
        30 November 2012 at 3:25 pm

        But I thought the problem with this government was that they weren’t doing things.

        • vto 2.2.1.1
          30 November 2012 at 3:29 pm

          The shared traits of the Soviets and the Nats are many.

          • Ennui in Requiem 2.2.1.1.1
            30 November 2012 at 4:09 pm

            Somewhere on the 7th circle of Hell are the remains of wrecked manufacturing plants from the US, ex USSR and NZ. Lucifer tried to sell them to the Chinese cut price: they said no, the CP of China reckoned they could supply him with souls by working their people to death building them and he should pay them. They sit there rusting until the only people who know how to work them die and come this way. Which is good, we don’t have your declining energy problem down here in Hell, eternal flames etc.

            • Colonial Viper 2.2.1.1.1.1
              30 November 2012 at 8:17 pm

              lol

              The shared traits of the Soviets and the Nats and the Labour Caucus are many.

              for completeness

  3. Populuxe1 3
    30 November 2012 at 7:32 pm

    Argh! Look, there is absolutely no point in clinging to manufacturing because it is absolutely impossible for us to compete with dirt-low-wage-and-huge population China, India and the rest of Asia. The only opportunity in manufacturing for an economy like ours is luxury manufacturing (which is why the loss of Fisher and Pykell was such a disaster). We should be directing our efforts toward high tech and intellectual property, and adding value to our agricultural and primary product exports. Stop living in the past.

    • Colonial Viper 3.1
      30 November 2012 at 8:05 pm

      We can’t manufacture like China does, but there are very many options opening up for NZ, especially as oil availability declines. Agree with your comments on adding value to our ag and primary industry exports.

      • BM 3.1.1
        30 November 2012 at 8:35 pm

        Like what?

        • Populuxe1 3.1.1.1
          30 November 2012 at 8:42 pm

          Wood and wool-based composites. Processed food items. And so forth…

          • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1.1
            30 November 2012 at 8:49 pm

            Along with sharper branding, marketing and better quality assurance of our premium produce, adding value on shore instead of shipping raw materials overseas, and getting access to the highest paying, most discerning consumers in the world.

        • RedLogix 3.1.1.2
          30 November 2012 at 8:48 pm

          Oh well BM. Lacking the wit, will or moral fibre to compete in the modern world, the remnants of the white race fell into poverty, dysfunction and depravity.

          Some of the more liberal minded members of the CCP were moved to suggest that their role was to ‘smooth the pillow of a dying race’….

          • Rogue Trooper 3.1.1.2.1
            30 November 2012 at 9:05 pm

            I think that is amazing RL, (but then that’s just me stoned again, naturally) 🙂

  4. Rogue Trooper 4
    30 November 2012 at 9:07 pm

    man, is it just me, or do you guys (gender neutral) regularly have great ideas. You are better than our current crop of politicians imo, but then I’m easy…easy like a Sunday Morning…thats why I’m easy…

  5. RedBaron 5
    30 November 2012 at 10:13 pm

    When we import goods and services into New Zealand we’re not just importing stuff made by low wage economies we are also importing their lower or non- existent health and safety standards, child explotation policies, planet wrecking pollution etc etc.
    All the sorts of transaction costs that economists love to ignore.
    Perhaps as a country we could level the playing field by taxing the companies that sell goods from countries that don’t point up to a minimum standard and even perhaps share that tax between us and the country of manufacture.
    Not a well formed thought but we don’t want to stop a poor country from manufacturing for us (think “Trade Aid”) but equally we want to stop the multi national corporate from pocketing all the
    profits from child labour etc.
    Increased fuel costs are going to put paid to a lot of this anyway. Onshoring in the US is getting bigger?
    Otherwise we couild do the China thing and peg our exchange rate to the US dollar.

    • Colonial Viper 5.1
      30 November 2012 at 10:22 pm

      When we import goods and services into New Zealand we’re not just importing stuff made by low wage economies we are also importing their lower or non- existent health and safety standards, child explotation policies, planet wrecking pollution etc etc.
      All the sorts of transaction costs that economists love to ignore.

      In other words, while importing consumer item price deflation, you also inevitably import the wage, labour, environmental, safety standards deflation which go along with it.

      Otherwise we couild do the China thing and peg our exchange rate to the US dollar.

      Smarter to do it the Singapore way. Peg your currency to a “basket” of currencies of your major trading partners. Whose composition and weighting is secret 🙂

      • RedBaron 5.1.1
        30 November 2012 at 11:05 pm

        Yep CV I stand corrected. A secret “basket” would be better then nobody would know that we always pegged at 100% of the lowest currncy cross.

        • Colonial Viper 5.1.1.1
          30 November 2012 at 11:23 pm

          Well a decent quant and an hour of parallel processing server time would deduce the exact basket easily, but yeah, officially it would be “unknown” and would have the advantage of being altered whenever it suited the Government.

  6. xtasy 6
    1 December 2012 at 8:39 pm

    This argument about NZ being unable to compete may be justified in some areas, but in general, what do we have? NZ has prostituted itself to international economic and business interests. But NZ is not alone of course. Jobs have been destroyed in most “developed” economies all over. Multinationals outsourced to cheap labour and low standard countries for decades, and we have products made there, where the environment gets killed off and poisoned, where workers are exploited in modern day slavery, and then we have wealthy importers bring shit cheap products into NZ, supposedly competitively and cheaply priced for fair reasons.

    I take solid argument with the latter. Prices we pay are over-priced in that regard.

    The Warehouse and others offer products that are supposed to be “cheap” due to imports from such cheap producing countries. The TRUTH is that this is a blatant LIE!

    Products made in China, India, Bangla Desh, Vietnam and so on are costing only a tiny fraction of what we pay for them here. The prices supposedly to be “cheap” are misleading.

    In reality you are taken for a rude ride. The margins are enormous, especially for operators in a small country like NZ. You can get container loads of cheap stuff here, the import charges, transport and so cost not that much, but the ones in business know how to play the game for their advantage.

    The excuse of market size is trivial, as the global economy does not bother much about where stuff goes. It is all determined by costs what is relevant.

    Shipping to NZ is competitive, same as everywhere else. Importing is the same, and dependent on what was just said. So the excuse that NZ imported products need to cost more than say in Australia, that is BS.

    The reality is the importers and traders make a great profit by over-charging Kiwi consumers. If you go to faraway places like Europe, also importing so much from China and other Asian nations, you can buy clothing and much else for about half the price as charged in NZ.

    Fact is: NZ is in so many ways run by so-called oligopolies (the next best thing to monopolies), so we have a select few run the trade and charge daylight robbery prices on the products they import and sell here.

    They are all doing very nicely, and like Mr Tindall, he dares to even put on a “green” jacket now, to pretend he is so concerned about the environment. Does he know what damage is done in China for producing the shit his Warehouse sells? I was told by a Mainland Chinese migrant that most what the Warehouse sells is over-priced and total crap quality. Even in China they would not sell most of the stuff the Warehouse sells, as nobody would buy it, due to being low quality and “rubbish”.

    So that tells you something about all this. Manufacturing has been given up in NZ, apart from producing tons of milk powder and raw logs for China and other nations. NZ is a largely THIRD WORLD COUNTRY pretending to be FIRST WORLD! It is a sad story and a huge dilemma. Key and NatACT want to continue to worsen things. That is not a solution in my view.