A third-term Labour government would focus on growing New Zealand’s exports, developing agriculture and renewable energy technology, and double-down on ‘high value’ tourism.
Party leader Chris Hipkins promised he’d lead a trade delegation to India within the first 100 days after forming a new Government.
His rival, Christopher Luxon, has previously said getting a free trade agreement with India would be a “strategic priority” for a National government.
India is the most populous country in the world and could be an enormous market for New Zealand exporters. However, it closely guards its domestic dairy industry and striking any trade deal that covered NZ’s key exports would be difficult.
Hipkins has often said his economic vision for New Zealand was for it to become “the best little trading nation in the world”.
A Labour economic plan, released on Wednesday morning, set out the three trade priorities the party would pursue if it wins the October election.
It would expand access to new and developing markets, help businesses to diversify their products and markets, and ensure NZ has strong supply chains and international links.
The second of Labour’s economic priorities would be to grow the agricultural technology sector to be worth $8 billion by 2030, from its current estimated value at less than $3 billion.
Labour would give the state-owned venture capital fund an extra $100 million to help kickstart more growth in the sector.
Further investments would be made in technology and research that could help farmers reduce emissions from agricultural activities.
Also included in this section was a commitment to reduce gross emissions, and not just rely on forestry offsets — it wasn’t clear how this related to the economic plan.
“We will drive down gross emissions and avoid over-reliance on offsetting through plantation forestry. We cannot offset our way out of the climate crisis,” the policy document said.
The third priority was developing renewable energy in New Zealand, with a view to exporting either products or expertise. Fourth, was a comprehensive plan to digitize the NZ economy.
This would include funding for small businesses to go digital and a grab-bag of other initiatives aimed at video, gaming, and science sectors.
Finally, Labour would adjust tourism policy settings to encourage more visitors who are willing to spend more money in the country, but less visitors overall.
The policy document said tourism was one of the fastest growing sectors prior to the pandemic, but the number of visitors was putting pressure on local resources.
Now, the government has been working with the industry to build “a more sustainable and higher value tourism industry that doesn’t overstep its social licence”.
This work would continue under a third-term Labour government with possible changes to the International Visitor Levy — a $35 tax charged to all incoming tourists.
More generally, Labour promised to continue its work on fair pay agreements, infrastructure investment, apprenticeship and skills training, and following its fiscal rules.
42 Comments
60% of India's population are farmers and they've already shown they'll fight to the death any lifting of the policies that shelter them from exposure to international trade. And any trade deal would also involve making transfer of people between countries easier, I can't see that working out well for NZ considering the disparity in the size of each countries population.
Hipkins has often said his economic vision for New Zealand was for it to become “the best little trading nation in the world”.
Spare us the cliched nonsense. Princess Xindy was more or less indicating that exporting food products will cause Armageddon through climate change (even though clowns like O'Conner were suggesting that there's a "huge global demand" for oat milk). And now tourism is OK? Given that aircraft emissions also destroy the planet?
At the very least, perhaps NZ can demonstrate to India that we're not exploiting Indian migrants as badly as before. That might win us a few favors.
good grief, you've really been smoking the groundswell weed.
Another $ 100 million on top of the $380 million already given to agri research . Still , you lot can only moan you're been picked on , and nobody likes you. They 're not picking on you , they're trying to point out the only way to increase our agricultural value is to make our product more valuable, by ticking the "green" boxes.
So they give another $ 100 million to a group that has no intention of voting for them,i would think the're wondering why they bother with the vitriol they get .
Lux (Latin for bright) has slightly more know how than mr chippie
Right now labour is shadowing nationals announcements by promising to do the same. Ardern sidestepped India and did not go there during her time. While Mr chippe missed an opportunity and didn't visit the Indian Guided missile destroyer INS Kolkata berthing at Ports of Auckland.. what a dick
I'd almost forgotten how comfortable Chippy is at lying for political benefit. From lying about the Northland women to that journalist, all in a day's work for our esteemed PM.
Very naughty of him to claim nobody was forced to get jabbed - the whole point of the mandate system was to act as a coercive tool (on pain of everything from losing your job, to losing your ability to practice your religion, to losing the ability to go out and socialise with friends and family).
Whether it was necessary or not is a different matter, but it was clearly done to force people to act a certain way by radically changing the "calculus" of their decision to comply or not. I'd actually have had far more respect if the government had been honest at the time and said 'yes, we are in effect forcing you to do this for your own good and for society's good'
That one comment he recently made that everybody chose of their own free will - which is being played back over and over again on social media as far as I can tell - will probably be a percent or two extra for Winston Peters come election time ... will be amusing if the pissed off anti-vaxxers, anti-mandaters (whatever you want to call them) have the final say by backing the kingmaker.
Where's the delusion?
I don't really care whether or not all the parties voted for vaccine mandates or not - that's beside the point. Also what has Business NZ got to do with the price of fish?
The point is the mandate existed to force some people to go and take a particular action. If it didn't exist to compel/force uptake, then what was the point of it in the first place?
There was a significant number of people in society who were, for all intents and purposes, forced to do something they didn't want to do. Therefore, the government applied enormous pressure via taking away employment, taking away the ability to do things like go for a haircut or go to the gym or to a restaurant, taking away the right to go to church or to the mosque (not to mention the social/peer pressure applied via the media etc) in order to make everyday life sufficiently difficult that you relent and 'make the right choice'.
That is force, merely applied via a different mechanism. Claiming nobody was compelled to do anything is like Dick Turpin trying to argue that when he pulled your stagecoach over and told you to 'stand and deliver' he was giving you a simple, free-will choice.
The fact that legislation that enabled this was passed, or the number of MPs voting for/against such legislation has no bearing whatsoever on the fundamental nature of that mandate; all it means is that every party in parliament at the time (apart from ACT perhaps) agreed that compulsion was the correct choice.
I'm not some deranged Freedoms NZ anti-vaxxer - I've had all mine (plus the boosters) because I figured it was probably the right thing to do for my own personal health ... but I'm not so myopic as to be unable to see how so many people felt completely forced against their will to do something, only to be so offensively gaslight by one of the principal architects of the mandate system.
I am now at the point where I just laugh whenever Chris Hipkins comments on the economy. He is simply not credible. Quick reminder for Chippy and the fat conductor-
The tax take increased $30bn pa from 2017-2022
Govt spend increased $50bn pa from 2017-2022
Govt debt has increased from $60bn to $130bn since 2017
Our current account deficit was $33.8bn for the year to Dec 22
NZ is the only country in Asia Pacific in recession.........oh and the govt deficit for is forecast to be something like $11bn for the current year.
They couldn't manage the corner dairy let alone right our economy. Frankly their financial mismanagement over the last few years should be worthy of criminal negligence.
Could've sworn he came into power in January of this year. But sure, by all means close that deficit.
Not totally sure what you mean by this malamah. As much as Labour would like us to judge them on just the Hipkins tenure, it doesn't work that way. If only all the bad stuff could have been taken away and/or reversed when Jacinda left, then I 'might' as a way of being eternally thankful consider my voting options based on just the last eight months of this Government.
Do you think he just appeared in January? He has had his nose stuck in every single portfolio that is currently a major problem. He has been a problem since 2017 when he was previously the ...... COVID-19 Response Minister, Education Minister, Health Minister, Ministerial Services Minister, Police Minister, Public Service Minister, and State Services Minister.
This is big on generalities and short on specifics. It reaffirms my thinking that they have a total lack of imagination or understanding on what makes our economy work.
India? India's economy is 'on paper' very successful because they make most things for themselves, and therefore import very little, whilst they export plenty of low-cost goods, to mostly neighbouring countries, and services to others. Their balance of payments numbers must be brilliant. Anyway, our trade with India is not material and is unlikely to become so, even if they get a visitation from the highly esteemed Hipkins. I don't think I want to drive a Tata vehicle or watch Bollywood films myself but perhaps I am out of touch on this.
we wont need FTA's or even be able to get them if ACT is able to enact its policy of getting rid of all tariffs why would anyone bother doing a deal when they can just export what they like to NZ and not take our milk cheese meat etc
The ACT Party has released a cost-of-living package that it says would ease the sting of inflation pressures.
Among the changes proposed are scrapping New Zealand’s remaining tariffs
Software is the key to developing great business relationship with India. NZ is nicely placed in time zone to serve the US. We can develop great centres here, staffed with software professionals from India (brought here with sweetened migration incentives) to develop our Software service business. NZ businesses should build start ups with such Indian migrants. AI with Indian brains (pun intended) can reap rewards for India and NZ. Any takers ?
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