Swapping water with China
Part of Jeanette’s address in reply to the Prime Minister’s opening speech this afternoon pointed out the contradictions between the government’s sustainability rhetoric and its move towards a free trade agreement with China. Talking about a Chinese-made mango drink she nearly bought in Moerewa, she notes:
…we are importing water and sugar from China in an aluminium can. We know they are short of water and it’s often very polluted, and much less desirable than our tap water.
The aluminium can would have been made with coal fired electricity. The bottling plant probably also ran on coal fired power. Marine diesel brought it here.
Mothers in Moerewa presumably buy that drink thinking they are giving their children healthy juice, because it is so misleadingly labelled, when they are actually giving them sugar water.
What are we selling China in return? Mainly dairy products. How does that affect NZ? Firstly, it consumes massive amounts of fresh water; we’re currently using 2-3 times more water per person than most other OECD countries. Irrigation of dairy farms is the single largest use of allocated water in NZ. For every litre of milk produced, 1000 litres of water are consumed in the process. Every extra cow increases nutrient and bacterial pollution into our waterways many of which are already not safe to swim in. Every extra cow increases our methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas. And what benefit do we get from these dairy exports? Cans of water and sugar. We pollute and over-allocate our high quality water here in order to pay for importing doubtful quality water from China. Does that make sense?
To sum up, free trade with China means swapping our good quality water and the health of our children and our rivers for their poor quality water, using lots of fossil fuel to arrange the swap and denying the human rights of their workers.
This is what the government wants us to do more of, under a Free Trade Agreement. This is part of their vision of sustainability.
February 13th, 2008 at 3:03 am
Over-all for any debt based economy not wanting to collapse, the drive for exports comes about through a lack of purchasing power.
The National Dividend, as advocated by DSC, recently calculated at $14,699 per head for over 4 million people in NZ is another way for the economy to meet it’s annual shortfall. Internally, this would also have a cutting effect on increasing mortgage n interest rates, that effect farmers like everyone else to wanting to increase their output, since the compounding debt cycle would be out of the mix.
Whateva children, or who eva are drinking, it is going to have water content involved sumwhere, i presume if juice was a main industry it would have significent h20 requirements too. Juice is usually pretty concentrated sugar content, so why do parents need to give children sugar hits in the first place?
THe National Dividend would be of help with this also.
Having regional public water recycling infra-structure systems available for use, alongside an encouragement of local community consumption throughout New Zealand, so that naturally quality and not quantity can be demanded and supplied, would surely be a type of “Economic Democracy” in action via it’s funding of Community Credit with which to inspire imitation and not damnation…even in China?
DSC 08.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:30 am
No Jeanette, free trade doesn’t mean “we” (who is this “we”?) “swapping” anything. Dairy farmers don’t swap cheese for a Chinese drink, it’s totally inane to say so. To say the benefit from dairy exports is a Chinese drink is complete rubbish, it actually pays for people to have a living, to feed, clothe and house their families, to have education and healthcare, and sustain many others supporting them. That is what it pays for. Only the deranged who think that the money in circulation is “owned by society or the state” care about whether someone importing something has the money from exporting to the importer, which of course is almost never the case!
You could always sit at home and make everything you consume and let everyone else do the same, and enjoy the relative poverty from that, or you could trade. Actually more importantly you could let people choose whether or not they trade. That’s the point, you don’t want to.
Besides all that, the implication is that the dairy industry should be severely curtailed, even if the waterways were clean, because cows fart and burp and exporting is “bad”. Fine! The same presumably applies to other animal based primary produce, in which case see how well the economy does when NZ no longer exports.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:31 am
The other day my husband brought some ice cones home. I happily opened it and started to suck cone. It was one of those things you have to squeeze to push the ice up and out. Sugared water and cardboard. I read the text on the outside while eating it and saw that it came from China, and than it struck me. The reality of it all; we pay two dollars for a little lump of frozen sugar water packed in cardboard that has to be kept frozen while it is transported halfway across the planet. It is crazy. We have everything in this country; fruit clean water, and people to make ice. The only thing we don’t have is our own money. That we borrow from criminals who are entitled to print money out of thin air, and lend it to us at criminal rates. Were I live I bargain with my neighbours, and we all try to live without money, it is incredible how rich that makes you feel. I propose everybody does the same. Grow your own food, make you own cheese, and live like our ancestors did, I’ll guarantee you will feel like a millionaire.
Evelien
http://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com
February 13th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Lets dong on formers is ever present. Therefore all credibility of the rest of the speech is lost.
February 13th, 2008 at 11:21 am
(Quote)
To sum up, free trade with China means swapping our good quality water and the health of our children and our rivers for their poor quality water, using lots of fossil fuel to arrange the swap and denying the human rights of their workers.
(Unquote)
New Zealand want free trade with China. This country wants to do trade with a country that has appalling human rights abuses.
Take a look at this website:
http://www.ishr.org/index.php?id=1026
I am totally ashamed to admit that I am a New Zealander!!!
It is an absolute disgrace!
February 13th, 2008 at 11:28 am
>>This country wants to do trade with a country that has appalling human rights abuses
Doesn’t leave many countries left to trade with, including this one.
Stopping trading with China will stop the human rights abuses how?
When the actual problem is Communism.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
WHAT communism?
February 13th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Thank you BluePeter,
Your typical mindset is EXACTLY what encourages such crap on this planet. I bet you never even bothered to look at the website. Just bury your head in the sand. That solves the problem, doesn’t it!! That way you don’t even have to bother to think about it.
Trading with a Communist country is an absolute disgrace!!
Money is far more important than people.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Outward Bound,
Your “typical mindset” ignores the lessons of history. Trade improves conditions. I suggest you study the economic history of Japan from the end of WW2 onwards.
>>That solves the problem, doesn’t it
Free trade will improve conditions a lot faster than a closed economy will.
>>That way you don’t even have to bother to think about it.
You might want to look a bit closer at that computer you’re using. Where were the parts made, and by whom?
You best stop using it right now. Hypocrisy is not a good look, eh
February 13th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
BluePeter,
You are absolutely right. Every single one of us New Zealanders are Hypocrites! Walk into a shop and buy an item and it has MADE IN CHINA printed all over it. We as New Zealanders have absolutely nothing to be proud of.
As I said, I am absolutely ashamed to admit that I am a New Zealander.
February 13th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I’m not.
Trade is a good thing. Conditions will improve in China because of it.
They already are.
February 13th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
BluePeter said: Trade is a good thing.
If only it were that simple, BluePeter. Trade is like sex - it can be either good or bad. What makes it good or bad depends both on what you do and whom you do it with.
February 13th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
If ($buy_it_from_china)
{
}
else if ($buy_it_somewhere_else)
{
}
else
{
print (“Make it ourselves�)
}
end if
February 13th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Toad wins the award for the most imaginative metaphor. Let’s not get started on penetrating foreign markets….
Results speak for themselves. In the last decade, countries that have been
more open have achieved double the annual average growth of others. Not trading with China does nothing for Chinas working poor. It will make them worse off.
People favour more choice, not less. Efficiency is a good thing. Countries who trade don’t tend to fight one another….etc…..
February 13th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I’ll probably win the award for the biggest grammar pedant too, but it’s actually a simile rather than a metaphor BluePeter.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I think that is one of the best quotes I have ever encountered.
There are times I buy Chinese goods (because they are realistically priced, and often innovative) and times I won’t buy Chinese (because it is a product that is available in NZ already). It is a hard decision when you are normally monogamous.
Well. it made me simile anyway
February 13th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Heh heh. I stand corrected
February 13th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
good article fwwog,
February 13th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
If Chinese workers were allowed to organise collectively it wouldn’t be so bad, until then i’m not sure it’s going to be able to change its image as the land of sweatshops and a nice wall.
February 13th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Dear BluePeter,
You refer to the example of Japan as proving that trade is a good thing. If you dig a little deeper I think that you’ll find that a/the Japanese “cheated” outrageously by having very high tariffs and a labyrinthine local distribution system to keep imports down, and that B/ what gave Japan a very good chunk of the initial wealth to rebuild (after being flattened in WW2) was supplying the US army in Korea; C/ the Japanese government enagaged in some very severe union bashing in the 1950s to ensure that wages stayed low and D/ the country has effectively been a one-party state for more than 50 years.
So simply saying “trade” made them wealthy is rather simplistic..and it was not a particularly invisible hand either.
I also sincerely hope that you not advocating that NZ follow their example?
February 13th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Oh, and as a general PS to this thread, given China’s water and air quality, I wouldn’t recommend eating any Chinese foodstuff that hasn’t been processed to within an inch of its life. Come to think of it..I wouldn’t eat the processed stuff either. Filters and such may remove bacteria from water, but they are not nearly so good at removing chemical toxins.
Especially considering that NZ food is just as readily available and is usually of a high standard, or if it is not you have some recourse. Good luck trying to get compensation for your chemical poisoning from a Chinese company.
February 14th, 2008 at 3:21 am
BluePeter said
Actually, no they haven’t. NZ is one of the most open countries and has fallen further behind more protected Australia.
Funny how some people won’t let the facts get in the way of their bias.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:20 am
>>has fallen further behind more protected Australia
That has more to do with Australia’s mineral wealth and our ridiculous tax system and employment law.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:25 am
>>So simply saying “trade� made them wealthy
It did.
Of course, there were other factors, but the key factor is they geared up the manufacturing base. There are obvious parallels with the Chinese manufacturing base - low wages, clear direction, and cheap commodities - mostly electronics, cars and steel.
Which eventually led to a tiger.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:43 am
BluePeter,
You are right that Australia is wealthy because of its minerals. You are wrong about New Zealand’s tax system being ridiculous. Compared to Australia, New Zealand’s tax system is very simple and streamlined, and as far as I can determine the tax rates are similar.
In Australia, GST doesn’t apply to all items (as it does in NZ), for example food is excluded (may be a good thing). The personal income tax system is very complicated. There are all sorts of rebates and offsets which can be claimed, and the tax returns are horrendously complicated compared to NZ. I can’t see how this is a good thing.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Good point.
I struggle with the concept that our farmers are encouraged to export high quality produce, to the point we often can’t get it at a reasonable price here, while the rest of us are reduced to importing cheaper food of questionable quality from who-knows-where.
It just seems that our society has become disjointed somehow.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:38 am
As an exercise in thinking globally - acting locally I suggest everyone reread Jeanette’s address in reply substituting Auckland for China. Lemon & Auckland doesn’t have the same marketing impact but it is actually what you are buying.
March 1st, 2008 at 4:12 am
Good on you, Jeanette - another great speech.
I remember reading an article she wrote some time ago about Free Trade asking Who pays for the Free?
In my opinion the only reason Australia is doing better than us is because they never Rogergnomed in the 80’s like we did.
After the next election the Rogering of this country will continue where it left off if/when National get in.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:17 am
“Free trade will improve conditions a lot faster than a closed economy will.”
I 100% absolutely agree with that. For China to become more human rights and environmentally friendly will take time, we have to educate them to our way of thinking and I don’t think blackmail is the way to go.
“We as New Zealanders have absolutely nothing to be proud of.”
Not true, your rugby team has been for many years widely regarded as the best in the world.