A giant chicken was handing out fliers today on Lambton Quay. And from what I know from watching Family Guy (left), giant chickens are not safe. You can wind up having a massive fight with them.
   It turns out the giant chicken—OK, a guy in a chicken suit—was campaigning for an animal action group, the Wellington Animal Rights’ Network. ‘Over 2·5 million hens suffer inside battery cages in NZ,’ read the flier’s headline.
   I thought it was a flier to promote the purchase of non-battery eggs, which I have been buying for some time. I’ve seen the prices fall as more consumers become clued up. But the battery-egg people know about this. By rebranding their eggs as ‘Farm Fresh’ or ‘Country Fresh’, consumers have been fooled—I know, as my father was one—into thinking they are non-battery.
   It had a bit more. It told us that the Green Party’s Sue Kedgley rightly has a bill in Parliament, the Consumers’ Right to Know (Food Information) Bill, that will legislate so that battery hen farmers will have to label their products accordingly. We were to write to our local MPs to get them to support the Bill.
   That would have been the end of the post till I discovered that Ms Kedgley’s bill is the one designed also to fight the New Zealand Government’s proposal to end country-of-origin labelling for food.
   Yes, you read this correctly. After all the great social policies espoused at the time of the 1999 election, Labour is even further to the right than the right-wing parties on these issues, selling out their voters.
   Oops, didn’t I say this in the 1980s?
   Ending country-of-original labelling is the opposite to the global trend, which is to inform consumers. The government’s move seeks to deceive consumers to make less healthy choices in food. GE crops, food laced with chemicals—things New Zealanders say they do not want. We expected the government to act accordingly. The Australian government has—in fact, Kiwis selling there have to comply with strict country-of-origin labels.
   Ms Kedgley said in a press release:

The Government’s astonishing stance has been taken in spite of the Australia–New Zealand food policy-setting body announcing this week in a policy directive that it supports mandatory country of origin labelling of food. At present the labelling is mandatory only in Australia, under a temporary arrangement, and voluntary in New Zealand.
   Ms Kedgley said she understood our Minister of Food Safety Annette King had voted against this policy directive at the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council meeting in Sydney on Monday.
   “Officials have told me that not only did Ms King vote against the policy directive, but that the New Zealand Government intends to keep fighting the introduction of mandatory labelling in this country, and may even opt out of any future joint standard on the issue,” Ms Kedgley said.
   “It is scandalous our Government is opposing our right to know what is in the food we eat and where it comes from—particularly when New Zealanders eat a greater proportion of imported food per head of population than most OECD countries.”

   In the months I have blogged, New Zealanders have seen in the news:

• the Minister of Finance, Dr Michael Cullen, telling Japanese investors not to buy New Zealand dollars in the same month certain bonds had to be paid, thereby collapsing the Kiwi dollar from around US$0·7 to US$0·62 so goods cost more;
• a coming free-trade deal with Red China;
• now, the relaxing of country-of-origin labelling requirements.

   These all point at one thing: doing Kiwis out of jobs and keeping as many New Zealanders in the dark about “buying foreign” as possible. They favour those who want to source cheap goods from Red China and work in US dollars. Their US dollar holdings are worth more, allowing them to buy more products from an unelected state with a questionable human rights’ record, and sell products made by Chinese workers for 15 to 22 cents an hour to New Zealanders.
   I am an exporter. I make royalty income as well, all in US dollars. I do bloody well out of the currency losing its value. I should shut up.
   But not when I know I am one of the very few exporters, working in a country where the government has actively discouraged exports. I get no emails from Positively Wellington Business, a fact which thoroughly surprised a journalist today. I get no responses from New Zealand Trade & Enterprise’s Wellington offices, whether I phone, email, write or make personal requests (and I have to deal with another city). I have had friends, who actually do get answers from T&E, to outsource their production away from New Zealanders and into Asia. First-hand, I know Labour’s policy is to discourage exports as much as possible, no matter what they say.
   Given that Labour wants New Zealand to be a net importer—I mean, it has had seven years to show me otherwise, and the balance of trade figures should show that—then a weak currency will only serve to make things less affordable for New Zealanders.
   I do not believe dealing with Red China sends the right signals, when we should be firmer on its conduct. And creating the potential to misinform consumers goes totally against our desire in the 21st century for transparency. Food first; what next?
   To Labour voters, I ask if supporting right-wing fat cats was what you envisaged when you cast your vote in 2005. Because these policies only help importers who want to destroy Kiwi jobs.
   You can do something about it. Write to your local MP and ask them to support Sue Kedgley’s bill.
   I never thought I’d see the day when I’d blog about supporting a Green bill, but there you have it. I have to say the lady is right and the government is wrong. In fact, the government makes us a laughing stock among western countries on these issues.
   I say we get some balance and sense back in to the country. As an exporter, show me a bit of respect by helping me give my fellow countrymen jobs, lower my taxes, and let the currency go down when we are good and ready to deal with it. By all means, let us have free trade, with lower tariff barriers—but when we are ready, as a nation, to capitalize on it.
   Oh, Prime Minister, Ministers, I said as a nation. Not as a bunch of rich fat asses in a boardroom. If you want to keep your jobs, note that there is a difference. The former group is the one who put you in your jobs, and we sure as heck can take them away from you. (Only thing is, who can we vote for? Beats the crap out of me. Miss Clark and Dr Cullen might yet have the last laugh. But not before generating a lot more poverty by their term’s end.)

Del.icio.us tags: New Zealand | exporters | jobs | animal rights | consumer | transparency | genetic engineering | poverty | politics | policy | globalization | patriotism Posted by Jack Yan, 08:30  permalink

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