I always avoid Australian-made biscuits when I’m in the supermarket. I just can’t see the point of sending biscuits thousands of kilometres from their point of manufacture when New Zealand biscuits are made down the road.
The same applies to garlic from China, grapes from the US or pork from Canada.
It’s one thing to buy foreign-produced goods we don’t produce here like rice, bananas and coconuts. But importing biscuits? Fruit and vegetables? Meat?
It’s clear the environmental cost to get these products here has not been factored into the price. This is adding to the environmental deficit being left for a future generation to deal with because for now it’s being paid out in dividends to wealthy shareholders.
So I have a lot of sympathy for the Buy Australian campaign which is removing foreign-produced products from supermarket shelves in Australia, and raising political hackles on this side of the Tasman, even if its purpose has nothing to do with reducing food kilometres (food miles for the imperialists)
The Buy Australian campaign’s objective is simply to increase the profits of the big Australian supermarket chains by promoting a crude, faux nationalism. I suspect it’s in large part a reaction to the growing success of local “farmers markets” in Australia where locally-produced produce is sold outside corporate control. One way for the big supermarkets to blunt the appeal of these independent markets is to push this Buy Australian campaign.
The squeals on this side of the Tasman from politicians are pathetic. John Key has asked the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to intervene and Labour says Key isn’t pushing the issue hard enough. Meanwhile it’s interesting to hear Labour Party food safety spokesman Damien O’Connor saying New Zealand should introduce “country of origin” labelling so that New Zealanders could know if they were buying Australian products and “return the sentiment”.
For nine years in government Labour steadfastly refused to implement country of origin labelling despite a majority of New Zealanders wanting it. We were being told to leave our patriotism on the sports field and keep it out of supermarket aisles.
New Zealand politicians only have themselves to blame. National and Labour have spent 30 years together building our economy on the basis of international free trade. The price this country has paid has been huge. Our manufacturing sector was decimated and we now have one of the most vulnerable economies in the world with huge dependence on agricultural exports. We are back where we were 100 years ago.
The Buy Australian campaign has caught us out because despite agreeing to allow free trade there are always “non-tariff barriers” such as this Aussie campaign to which we are dreadfully exposed.
So what should we be doing in response? We should leave the Australians alone and recognise that for a small, geographically-isolated country far from international trade markets it makes sense for us to be developing a much more self-sufficient economy for common-sense as well as environmental reasons.
One aspect of this should be government investment in worker co-operatives in areas where our economy is dependent on imports. These import-substitution investments used to be given as tax breaks and subsidies to private companies by New Zealand governments in earlier decades. However with a fresh start to building a more self-sufficient economy these investments can take the best from both the farmer’s markets and Buy Australian campaign and get the benefits of a community working together to support eachother.
Increasingly worker co-operatives will be the way of the future. We should be planning now.
I too seek NZ product, I look at the back of things to see where they are made, all the way down to my toilet paper. I also try wherever possible to purchase palm oil free product, that is getting harder and harder all the time, as well, but at least we have the choice.
For those Australian chains when they are trading here anyway, to go this way is totally disingenuous, so for me, it is now a boycott anything Australian I possibly can.
As well as buying locally made biscuits so as to support local industries, I’ve also noted that Aussie biscuit packaging is highly misleading. Generally speaking, each Arnott pack has a plastic separator almost the width of the actual biscuit on either side.
So a third to half of what you’re paying for is plastic and air.
The rest is appropriate, John.
By the way, most manufacturers now label their food products with “Made from Local and Imported Ingredients”. So it’s impossible to know the source of the item.
This became ludicrous when a leg of ham had the same statement; “Made from Local and Imported Ingredients”.
It was one leg of ham.
What part of it was locally made, and which part originated from off-shore?
Country of origin must become Labour Party policy. Otherwise they stand revealed as hypocrites on this issues.
Maybe the leg of ham was genetically engineered.
The Greens (Sue Kedgley) campaigned vigorously for country of origin labelling and Labour reneged time and time again. Labour are very good at saying they will do things now that previously were impossible. NOT TO BE TRUSTED!
I have an idea for a blogpost on this issue. It will feature a company that actually lists where it sources country-of-origin for each ingredient.
It can be done. It just requires the will to do it.
On this issue, Labour has to follow Green Party leadership, or be labelled (no pun intended) as hypocrites.
Ironically, the New Right – which created the slogan, “The Consumer is King” – is opposed to mandatory country-of-origin labelling.
There is no sound reason to deny consumers this information.
And one very good reason to supply it: Nobody can make informed decisions if the information is kept from them.
Of course, I’m pretty sure the corporations and politicians understand that which is why they oppose such labeling.
Makes me spit tacks,,,the importing of Pork is a perfect example of their insane lack of common sense..actually willful sabotage I call it!.. especially given the risk of that pig disease ‘Porcine Reproductive & Respiratory Syndrome that could be carried in from countries that harbour that disease. Not only that but just as importantly, I am a protester of factory farmed pigs and chickens but how can we expect N.Z growers to improve farming standards for the welfare for our pigs, if they have to compete with 40% of imported pork that will no doubt come from even more inhumane intensive practices Majority of people don’t give a shit about the welfare of the animals they eat. especially low income families.
I’m sure that a lot of low income families do care – they just can’t afford to buy anything else.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I only shop at Pak’n’Save and hope people will start to do the same. I do think we should have parity with Australia as far as benefits etc go. Why on earth we are letting Australians collect benefits here, it has to stop.
I agree that importing items that we can and should produce locally is madness, for self sufficiency and environmental reasons. But the free trade ideology doesn’t allow for common sense.
I think that it is absolutely wonderful that through free trade agreements and the like we have the chance to pick and choose exactly what we want to buy with our own money. Choice is a wonderful thing. It should be my choice what I choose to eat, which products or brands I choose to buy and which company or country I choose to patronise. I for one am glad of the right to spend my money (or what’s left of it after government have had the first cut) as I see fit.
But along with that right comes the responsibility to do the right thing. To some, that may be to buy local, to others it may be to buy organic. To yet another group, it may be brand recognition eg. (Anchor butter, Watties tomato sauce). But unfortunately to most it is to buy on price. One of my biggest frustrations as a food producer is that I don’t get the chance to sell our products based on their environmentally sustainable point of difference, but that is the grocery market. It is driven almost exclusively by price.
But it is that choice, that competition and that free trade that makes the basic food items as cheap and affordable as they are now.
Yes well people buying purely on price is a result of the free market as well, that is the free market that has steadily driven real wages down, forcing people to buy cheap muck
It is not so much the free market that has driven real wages down, but our slowly diminishing level of productivity per wage earner that is doing that. Food prices are lower now in real terms than they have been since the 1980’s.
Mike:
Really? So the failure of the neo-liberal revolution since 1984 can be blamed squarely at the feet of workers?
Hmmm, I never knew we had so much power…
But maybe this from the Productivity Commission has a bearing on the issue,
“In 2009, capital invested per hour worked across total market industries in New Zealand was almost 40% below the Australian level. Australia is also 3% ahead in terms of skills – measured here using data on workforce qualifications and relative pay levels – but this gap is much narrower than that found for capital per hour worked and multi-factor productivity. ”
– http://www.productivity.govt.nz/news/why-new-zealand-industries-lag-behind-australia
And more here; http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11130048
But really, the decline in productivity has been ongoing since the 1970s. If the liberalisation and creation of a “market economy” hasn’t worked since 1984, maybe the neo liberal ideology is flawed?
Heresy!
But possibly true.
It’s interesting that you should say so. Food is much cheaper abroad than in New Zealand. This includes things like New Zealand dairy products. Monopolies easily ruin things for small countries, and the supermarkets serve NZ exceptionally poorly.
Mike says there’s a “slowly diminishing level of productivity per wage earner”, I would be interested in seeing where he sourced this information for I have read the exact opposite in many articles which show U.S. production rates have risen while U.S. workers wages have fallen.
I doubt the story would be any different here in NZ as technological advances would have increased production rates, even if all our workers had become lazy good-for-nothings.
These days NZ employers can fire a worker within 90 days for no reason, except perhaps that they wanted to have cheap, government subsidized labour for a few months with no strings attached. In the current labour market I suspect any worker slowing production rates would soon be shown the door as they can easily be replaced.
http://www.alternet.org/story/155345/productivity_doubled_–_and_the_middle_class_got_screwed._what_went_wrong
My source was Statistics NZ. I like Stats NZ, because their info is usually retrospectively fact based with no political bias.
Low productivity in an economy is not usually the fault of the worker. On the contrary, the workers in a low production economy are often working longer and harder than ever. I am referring to low productivity (goods produced) per wage-earner as a percentage of GDP. Put another way, while GDP stays up there, there is an increasing financial burden placed on wage and salary earners by an overzealous and idealistic public service bureaucracy. Too many of our hard earned dollars are being siphoned off to the public service in the form of taxes, rates, charges, levies and the like.
Let’s use this election as a wakeup call to politicians by voting for the party that offers the least. They need to stop using my money to buy my vote.
Thanks for responding so promptly, Mike, I’m relieved to hear you don’t think all our workers are a bunch of lazy no-hopers.
I’ll refrain from entering into a debate about the value of GDP statistics or, “taxes, rates, charges, levies and the like” imposed upon us by no-hoper MPs.
I think that “choice” for global trading in products may slowly become a thing of the past, as increased use of fossil fuels leads to more global warming and extreme weather events.
Global “shopping” may become an anomaly that our decendents look back on with curiosity.
That, plus 21st/22nd Century major advancements in 3-D printing will make some importation of non-perishable goods unnecessary.
MIKE
Re: “I think that it is absolutely wonderful that through free trade agreements and the like we have the chance to pick and choose exactly what we want to buy with our own money.”
You sound like a man who has agreed to mortgage his home up to his eyeballs and spend the still available credit like there is no tomorrow. In the meantime you will not keep up with paying back and keeping your house, which will eventually be owned by someone else, the bank, or the person to whom they sell it to.
That is exactly the situation New Zealand and New Zealanders as a country and people are in.
Up to their eyeballs in debt for ever more expensive housing and certain imported goods like cars, to “afford” the “middle class lifestyle”, and to keep things “rolling” by selling off the commodities, bit by bit even real estate and land, yes even also know how, and thus the whole country.
Enjoy it while you can, until the boat sinks, that is your motto, right?!
WRONG Marc!!
According to treasury statistics, our mortgage is about half the NZ average. I don’t “spend like there is no tomorrow”. I still remember standing in my yard with my staff, watching my neighbour driving around in his air conditioned luxury. I recall wondering out loud, “where the hell are they getting the money from? I know for a fact that their income hasn’t moved”. Then, shortly after the 2008 crash, all was revealed. “Oh, I see, they borrowed it all”.
I recall talking to a dairy farmer shortly after the financial crash. I asked him how it will effect him. He told me, “a bit of a worry. I guess I will have to start trying to make money out of milking cows now.” (As opposed to capital gain).
You are talking to a man who saw the full effects of ‘rogernomics’ first hand. We were in a very very big way. Not because we were bad at what we do, but because we borrowed money at the wrong time. I consider that we have lost more opportunities in business by prudently not spending than by spending.
The whole rogernomics thing has made me lose my nerve to take big risks, however I see people around me living well not by producing something useful, but by merely borrowing and buying, holding, and then selling for capital gain. That hurts. Kind of reminds me of certain New Zealanders pre 1987 mortgaging their houses to buy shares, then pushing for a law change to rein in “irresponsible bankers and lending policies”. Hmmmm.
MIKE –
“The whole rogernomics thing has made me lose my nerve to take big risks, however I see people around me living well not by producing something useful, but by merely borrowing and buying, holding, and then selling for capital gain. That hurts.”
Well, there you are, that is what I meant with the core message of my comment above!
I was not so much criticising you personally, I was more talking about New Zealand as a whole (in an economic and fiscal sense), which of course is a situation brought about not by every single person in the country, but by too many individuals as you just described.
They are the ones above the average mortgage burden for New Zealand, and hence we have a too high private debt level, to which in comparison, the government debt is really rather moderate or marginal.
So sorry for using you and your comment as an example, while really meaning New Zealand as a whole. The real estate “investments” are based on a huge debt amount, and New Zealanders pay much higher interest on their borrowed money, than residents in most other OECD countries.
With interest rates about to rise again, there will be a real shock coming up, and that will choke off the supposed “rock star economy”, wait and see!
Which is the result of our low wage economy and high super-market prices.
Except that it doesn’t. Competition increases complexity and thus increases costs.
Richard D. Wolff, the U.S. economist who wrote “Capitalism Hits The Fan”, has much to say about the benefits of the worker co-operatives you favour establishing here. There are many of his videos posted on YouTube including an interesting interview with Bill Moyers.
In my opinion the whole banking system is a huge scam built on our perpetual indebtedness to them when they create loans out of thin air, however, if we must use their services, it would seem to make sense to use our own KiwiBank rather than the Aussie ones.
Your points about the future implications of us being a geographically isolated country are well made though obvious to anyone of with half a brain (although Gosman & IV will probably go off half-cocked). Selling our fertile land off to foreign countries, as is happening in Africa and other parts of the world, makes no sense at all if we will need to be self sustaining in the future.
Errr…actually, one might think that Kiwi Bank works well for New Zealanders but no it doesn’t..and is fast becoming just another profit driven entity with no heart. 2 yrs ago I decided to transfer my small mortgage (repaid 3/4 of my house which I had brought before the boom hence had heaps of equity in it) to Kiwi bank just because of the mere fact that I felt I wanted to support Kiwi owned. Well it wasn’t to be…seems my single self employed net income wasn’t good enough for them ..despite the fact I had been paying well beyond minimum monthly payments since 2003. had no debts outside the mortgage apart from one small hire purchase monthly payment. Kiwi Bank can stick their phoney ‘support kiwi’ line up their proverbial.!*#!
Couldn’t agree more, despite being longtime Kiwibank customers they wouldn’t give our son a mortgage even tho he earns $170,000 p.a.because according to their pea brained analysts he should have saved more on his salary in the previous 12 month period.he supports his partner who is a fulltime student and pays Auckland rent as well as helping to support his siblings. ( who were students) since when did banks become moral arbiters! we closed our Kiwibank account took our cash to an Aussie owned bank. They treat us well for a couple of old farts without any debt.
It seems Kiwibank have a long way to go with improving their criteria for lending, as well as their customer service. So damned annoying to line up with people posting mail and registering their cars!
Bugger! So all Big Banks are a Bust!
Another nation follows this sort of idea of self sufficent economic development in fact they developed a word for it. It is called Juche.
Thanks for teaching me a new word, Gosman, although I didn’t have a despot in mind when I made my comment but, now I think about it, perhaps there is a corollary with your own Supreme Leader when it comes to ignoring the will of the people.
Now if only you would learn how the word “exponential” means your capitalist economical growth model is unsustainable..
Perhaps this can help Gosman with the concept of exponentiality.
Thanks for that, Draco, but I suspect Gosman’s mind is as snapped closed as one of those mouse traps.
I always try to buy local first and foremost., At least then I can be reassured that good standards have been met. With overseas foods we can’t always be sure what hygiene standards were followed or how clean their water was.
We may not be perfect, but we’re a damn sight better than some of our trading partners.
Also the amount of new insects arriving here from international imports, especially the palm kernel for dairy cows coming in from Indonesia. It has become a bit of a joke on the national radio station to mention something like I heard a while ago that Praying Mantis males are in trouble because an African one has arrived here or something, not so funny when fruit flies are being found…
“For nine years in government Labour steadfastly refused to implement country of origin labelling despite a majority of New Zealanders wanting it. We were being told to leave our patriotism on the sports field and keep it out of supermarket aisles.”
All for the “freedom of trade” and “convenient” application of rules, that save us “bureaucracy”, that is why they dragged their feet, I presume.
New Zealand food labeling is ridiculous and infantile, when compared to the standards that are used in the EU, and I believe even in the US and other countries.
“Made from local and imported ingredients”, where else can you find such useless references on products, but in New Zealand?
It is time to bring in strict rules for food labeling, not just for country of origin identification, but also to tell us clearly and honestly, what is in the products we buy.
As for more local manufacturing and servicing, I have called for this for years, as it is totally sensible, if done well and right.
I am also sick of finding so many products that are made or packaged in Australia or China, using New Zealand produce or ingredients. We ship stuff to China or other places, to have value added, and then re-import the finalised product.
At the same time we have “production” standards and rules here, that is for statistical purposes, so that just turning milk into milk powder or baby formula, or cutting logs into segments, is called “production” or “manufacturing”. Hence the “growth” in that area, mostly for yet more milk powder and baby formula to go to China, where they make the end products.
All the changes can only come gradually, but we need a u-turn from the “dumbing down” of NZ industry, to produce largely low value added goods (apart from some already successful niche markets).
Yes, and buy NZ made, where possible.
Interesting to see what happens if NZers boycotted Countdown ie Woolworths and shifted all our banking arrangements to Kiwibank and gave the one fingered salute to BNZ, ANZ, ASB and Westpac
We are incredibly naive as a country, our politicans think the rest of the world are going to play by the rules. Australia has been an investors graveyard for NZ companies in the past, ie Air NZ purchase of Ansett and Telecoms purchase of APTT.
Our politicans need to wake up and start acting in the best interests of New Zealanders and stop being lapdogs to the AUS, the US and China.
Look after our own people first.
Bloody good article; of course we should ‘buy nz made’.
Would now be a good time to start ‘making nz made’?
Re-educating people about stealing being bad karma, how to grow vegetables, garner skills and fix stuff, re-comissioning old production lines and commissioning new recycling plants, all this will have to be done, if we are to survive as a nation which has had it’s head pulled off by a free trade agreement w. China.
The evidence suggests that the FTA with China has been extremely beneficial economically as was predicted by many when it was signed.
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/china-fta-delivers-economic-benefits
Of course we should Buy NZ made whenever we can. Usually NZ made goods are of reasonable quality. In the past three months I have had to return a range of new items to retailers because they have been faulty or they break within a very short timeframe.
I support the Australian campaign, it makes sense and I would be pleased if we would run the same here – remember when we had ‘Buy NZ Made’ stickers on many products.
Country of origin labelling is a must-have. The ‘made from local and imported ingredients’, labelling is infuriating and senseless.
The thing is , this is not really a Buy Australia Made campaign. It is all about duopolists fighting it out using their suppliers as pawns in their game. The people running Coles I think are from the UK- ex Asda (Walmart people) I think this is the case still, Anyway in the UK supermarkets also run these sorts of Fake buy local campaigns. The Supermarkets do not really care- suppliers have to do work rounds to comply – it is all a game. This particular game just demonstrates that there is no real competitive market in groceries in NZ or OZ.
If the supermarkets here, ever stock Lays potato chips, then it’s fuck bluebird.
NZ beer and wine is the world’s best anyway.
JULIAN BRAVERY – You have obviously never been to Continental Europe, I must presume, as otherwise this is a somewhat ignorant comment to make. While New Zealand is now producing some of the better and in the odd case best wines, it is not necessarily “the best” in wine-making overall, when looking at quality.
As for beers, come on, you seem to have been raised with ‘Lion Red’, ‘Steinlager’ and little else. Some boutique beers made here are interesting and good, but still a far cry of what “beer studies” will prove to you, should you ever explore the immense variety and qualities of beers in many countries in Europe (not talking of the main brands from there).
Maybe one day New Zealand can count itself to be one of the best in that field also. Do not get me started on cheeses and so, as there are again some good products made here, but the traditional blocks of cheddar and strange “Edam” have little resemblance to what I would call good cheese. But when comparing with other Anglo Saxon countries, that know little better, New Zealand may look rather good.
There are endless opportunities to improve and diversify in all these areas, and I truly hope NZ will one day be at the very top, in quality and the range of products available (besides of much else that can be made here).
That image may be more ironic than you think – even our banknotes are manufactured in Melbourne.
[…] JOHN MINTO has argued (to considerable acclaim from Daily Blog readers) that we should be making “a fresh start to building a more self-sufficient economy.” […]
Hear, hear, John. One of the best ways to reduce our international debt/ deficit is by reducing our imports, through developing our own capacity to produce things we currently import. As you say, the goal is not actually a “nationalist” one so much as a bioregional one; to produce product as close to the point of use as possible.
Plenty of nasty corporations are registered with the NZ state, so while their products may be “NZ made”, they’re seldom bioregional, and they’re just as exploitative of their workers as multinationals. I really appreciate that you’ve referenced workers co-operatives as an alternative to supporting these swine. Co-operatives like the Enspiral group, and Loomio, are examples of the sort of democratic workplaces everyone in this country could one day work in.
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