NZ’s trade danger
Tukituki MP Craig Foss has just pointed out the danger to NZ trade from campaigns such as this one in The Times which urges consumers to buy French not NZ wine as it is better for the environment.
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May 30th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Jesuuus Christ…..
I’ve been observing the NZ economy from afar for a lot of years……your avoidance of the necessity of an IMF intervention over that period is amazing/breathtaking/religious.
God truly defends NZ.
Being falsely linked to Australia’s resource economy by geographically challenged US funds helps.
And yo’all haven’t got a single clue about this edge work yet, have you boys?
Shakes head, shorts the Kiwi long term yet again.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:39 am
It’s hard to go to bed in Aust with Kiwis reading Craigies crap unchallenged .
Before I tell you that Craig and his non trading financially illiterate poltical mateys
will send you broke…… I give him the opportunity to tell NZ… chez Dave Fs… what dollar he ever made from trading any fucking market anywhere.
Classic Kiwi wanker.
May 31st, 2007 at 6:58 am
Both Key and Clark belief we humans are destroying the planet so they applaud such measures. Any unnecessary expenditure of energy is bad, all that shipping our goods can’t be good for the environment nor can flying in all those tourist do but harm.
Our economy is history anyway, and Kiwis are not interested in a good economy anyway, because they state can always provide for you.
So, to sum up: is there anybody who really cares about this?
May 31st, 2007 at 7:21 am
Just shows how useless NZ’s representation in the UK is. Plenty of KEA wine and cheese nights – but no presence in the constant food miles debate we have here in Britain.
Only Anderton has taken them on properly (God how I hate saying anything positive about that bugger) but there has been no follow up.
Western Europe has swallowed the line that carbon emissions matter. If NZ producers don’t get it into euro consumers’ heads that the entire prduction chain (not just finished goods transport) is what matters then it is well and truly game over.
May 31st, 2007 at 8:17 am
It is pleasing to see that someone is talking about this, I have not heard anything from our trade minister.
Mr Foss is not only a good person being horticulture spokesperson to speak on such an issue, but being the MP for Tukituki he is also looking after a large nymber of his constituents as a large majority of Hawkes Bay Wineries and vineyards are within the Tukituki Electorate – once again Foss is out backing the bay
May 31st, 2007 at 8:25 am
true matt,
its about “embodied energy”, the amount of energy consumed along the entire production chain, that is what needs to be considered to reduce the carbon footprint.
If the french wines bottles are made in Poland using Coal-fire power, with Moroccan sand, chances are NZ wine is competitive in terms of embodied energy. But if its all from the local region in France on Nuclear power, we’re screwed.
We need to invent some low carbon ways of transporting our goods to Europe, the US and Japan. Sailing ships anyone?
May 31st, 2007 at 8:52 am
If the IPPC had not come up with AGW the self serving Eurocrats would have invented it…it’s the best non-tariff trade barrier todate.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:25 am
The interesting sting in the tail for this one is that as we (NZ) become less viable for business (F&P, Sleepyhead etc) we will end up paying ‘transport carbon’ costs for more and more consumer goods. We are windswept, earthquake prone, governed by socialists and now ‘food miles’ is going to slap us as well.
The wine industry will be an interesting one to watch. Will the wine makers stop building beautiful estates when they loose export orders? Will the local price (of wine) come down as the supply goes up or will the price go up tracking the increased price of imported wine?
Eitherway tax thresholds aren’t moving and inflation is happening so our spending power goes down and we probably won’t be able to afford wine for much longer anyway. Move on.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:56 am
Perhaps the hundreds of millions of dollars being sent to Russia in the form of our Carbon Indulgences could be better spent on advertising campaigns to tell dumb Europeans that despite our distance from their markets our produce is served up in their supermarkets at way less cost to the environment than their local stuff.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:11 pm
brian_smaller
I think we could debate the environmental impact, how do you state so emphatically that our wine is produced in a more environmentally friendly way than locally produced wine in Europe? Is wine made very differently in Europe compared to NZ?
Are south island produced wines more environmentally friendly than north island produced wines due to less fossil fuel being burned for electricity during production?
May 31st, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Exactly Burt.
Just because we think NZ is clean and green doesn’t actually mean that our production methods are.
Of course this whole global warming thing is half bollocks anyway. And even if it wasn’t carbon emmisions from transportation is way down the list of what people should care about anyway.
May 31st, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Exactly Burt.
Just because we think NZ is clean and green doesn’t actually mean that our production methods are.
Of course this whole global warming thing is half bollocks anyway. And even if it wasn’t carbon emmisions from transportation is way down the list of what people should care about.
May 31st, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Good comment by Matt. Everyone should email the journalist who wrote this – Anna Shepard on ecoworrier@thetimes.co.uk – and ask her whether she has factored other carbon inputs to wine – e.g. coal fired power to make wine bottles. Many NZ producers say that our products are more carbon neutral. Now of course they would say that – but it shouldn’t be just dismissed. NZ is a country where the majority of our electricity is generated from renewable hydro power. France wouldn’t come close to that. It is irresponsible journalism if she hasn’t investigated this angle and she should be told that she is endangering the fragile economy of a small country.
May 31st, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Fred said:
“It’s hard to go to bed in Aust with Kiwis reading Craigies crap unchallenged .
Before I tell you that Craig and his non trading financially illiterate poltical mateys
will send you broke…… I give him the opportunity to tell NZ… chez Dave Fs… what dollar he ever made from trading any fucking market anywhere.
Classic Kiwi wanker.”
Maybe you should actually do some research before you comment in such a disgusting manor way about others; Craig Foss has more experience and skill in the area of foreign trade than I suspect most of the other ministers in govt put together, one quick view of his website will confirm the outline of this:
http://www.craigfoss.co.nz/index.php?/pages/about.html
I would suggest that he is right, as are several of the contributors to this thread. We need to be far more mindful of how our trading partners view us than we currently are.
May 31st, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Micheal C
Re: Our electricity generation statistics.
http://www.worldcoal.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=403
“In 2004 New Zealand’s electricity generation was 41,554 GWh. 65% of New Zealand’s electricity is produced from hydro with 11% supplied by coal.
Breakdown of New Zealand electricity production:
* Hydro 64.8%
* Gas 15.9%
* Geothermal 6.2%
* Coal 10.9%
* Wind 0.9%
* Others 1.2% (biogas and wood)
In the last 10 years electricity generation has grown by 18% – 6310 GWh. The New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development estimates that electricity generation will reach 47,800 GWh by 2015 – growth of 15% from 2004.
I don’t see any new hydro schemes coming on stream, but heaps of coal is coming out of the ground. What are the Govt doing ?
In 2004 coal and gas already made up 26.8% – it’s a disgrace.
Also note with regard to exports: “New Zealand has only one coal-fired power station, which is the 1000 MW Huntly Power Station in the North Island. Other major coal consumers are dairy processor Fonterra and New Zealand Steel.”
I don’t think we should draw too much attention to ourselves by fighting back too hard.
May 31st, 2007 at 4:08 pm
If food miles wasn’t a complete and utter load of bullshit then there would be “things that europe has a competative advantage in” miles to.
Where are the “exporting a renault car overseas” miles or the “ipod miles” etc. The whole concept is simply a non tariff barrier, and will continue to be so unless it is applied equally to all products.
May 31st, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Chris Trotter was talking about it today on National Radio. Trotter is a smart bloke, usually, and for once I was on the same side as him on an issue, but he produced an awful argument against food miles.
It opened with pointing out that New Zealand assisted Britain in the war. He then discussed how bad this could be for the New Zealand economy, which isn’t going to convince anyone at the Times.
He then threatened to make a relevant point by mentioning the word “science”, but that fell over as well because he couldn’t muster any evidence on carbon output of New Zealand producers or of rivals.
Another bloke stepped in later to help him out by saying 99.7% of goods are shipped from New Zealand, and shipping is carbon-efficient.
Now I can’t recall Chris Trotter ever writing in support of localisation, but I bet he has previously had warm feelings about it. Now he’s railing against it.
Food miles could be the issue that splinters the Left, forcing environmentalists and socialists down different paths. One can only hope.
May 31st, 2007 at 6:14 pm
but no presence in the constant food miles debate we have here in Britain.
Only Anderton has taken them on properly (God how I hate saying anything positive about that bugger) but there has been no follow up.
FOr what its worth, when in the UK last year for the unveiling of the NZ war memorial, Helen Clark was interviewed on Radio 5 Womens’ hour and made the point very forcefully: total cost is proportional to energy, so NZ wine and lamb has less environmental impact than French Nuclear wine or Welsh lambs in *heated stalls all winter*.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:10 pm
How bout we run a campaign in Europe telling them to where to stick their carbon footprint and then ban all EU products?
June 1st, 2007 at 12:29 am
Yes Helen Clark was interviewd on Radio 5 and I am sure she made an impact on both people who listened.
UK papers today carry the story that supermarkets are working on a labelling system to signify the carbon footprint of a product. A golden opportunity for NZ if handled well, a disaster if not.
This is truly an issue to split the left – buy on food miles and watch african development fall over because yes the need trade, yes they are more energy efficient (use the sun instead of non renewable energy)yes they are cheaper but lets not buy because they are 3,000 miles further than Sussex.
Love the idea of banning all EU product – who in NZ really needs the dairy or meat industries anyway?
June 1st, 2007 at 5:28 am
LOL, Radio 5… yeah that made a true impact. Good to see Helen really went high up for that interview.
Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Waitrose are going to label all food and Matts right, if we don’t get out shit together we might be hit quite hard… although our meat is regarded as far better than the English stuff that passes as meat.