by frog
With 400 meat workers from Oringi sheep processing plant near Dannevirke heading off to a meeting today where they might lose their jobs, it looks again like our regions are suffering from the government’s failure to promote a diverse economy. Dannevirke suffered job losses at the Norsewear clothing plant in which moved off shore last year and the Feltex carpet plant which closed in 2006.
Now as industrial dairy moves in and a drought hits the region the numbers of sheep on our southern Hawkes Bay farms have diminished. And the inevitable result of that flows on through the local economy, which does not have the diversity it once had to survive the bad news from one industry.
We need to be promoting more diverse economies, rather than each town putting all its hopes on one industry. The current bubble is industrial dairy. Do we have any economic plan for what happens when that particular bubble pops, after dairy has steamrolled over and irrigated under all other farms and forests?
[Update]
Let me send a big ‘ka pai’ to Kiwiblog, for exposing PPCS Chief Executive, Keith Cooper’s use of the term ‘right sizing’.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Tue, May 13th, 2008
Tags: , dairy, Dannevirke, economy, hawkes bay, Meatworks, Oringi, PPPC
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
And we don’t want to lose a smelter as well, eh….
“The owners of New Zealand’s only aluminium smelter have warned that the plant could close, putting 3500 jobs at risk, if the Government’s emissions trading scheme passes in its present form”
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
is “Industrial Dairy” the new buzz word for the green lefties now that “Dirty Dairying” is old hat?
What seems to be forgotten by the anti dairying lobby is that every year the NZ dairy industry invests $50million in industry good science and ways to insure our industry stays viable in the long term
I am not sure if any other industry spends that sort of money
BTW the longer you greenies keep banging on about bio fuels the better it is for us
Thanks!!!!!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
And what *exactly* have the Green party said about bio-fuels, oh most informed and wise panda?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
No, BP we certainly don’t want to lose the smelter.
If we lost the smelter we would not only lose the jobs, but the aluminium production would be transferred offshore where it would most like be supplied by coal fired electricity generation, thereby increasing global CO2 emissions.
One of the main reasons we don’t want to lose the smelter is that its electricity supplier, Meridian Energy, already generates 100% of its electricity from renewable sources, so is not a greenhouse gas emitter (and would therefore not be subject to charges under an ETS).
But Rio Tinto doesn’t pay the market price for its electricity – it pays a discounted price for its electricity, under a contract that links the price it pays not to Meridian’s generation costs but to the price of electricity on the wholesale market.
The wholesale market, of course, includes not just Meridian’s generation, which is from 100% renewable sources, but that from other generators who generate from thermal sources and will therefore be required to pay for their carbon emissions.
The problem, in this instance, is not with the Government’s ETS (although there are lots of other problems with that), but with the electricity pricing arrangements between Rio Tinto and Meridian.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
I dont recall saying anything about the green party and bio fuels, I did say
“BTW the longer you greenies keep banging on about bio fuels the better it is for us”
by the tone of your comment it seems to me some greenies are distancing themselves from the great Saviour of the planet biofuels, now it was been suggested you could be responsible for mass starvation in the third world ?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
The problem may be to do with their pricing agreement, but this seems to be the inevitable overall outcome of the ETS- industry will move to where there are no carbon/environmental/workers costs to pay, i.e. China; and global carbon emissions will increase rather than decrease. Just a little bit of an externality yeah?
The ETS needs to be scrapped, as does Kyoto. It’s a nice idea, but we can’t afford it.
As for diversification of the economy, NZ’s economy has never done this very well right from the 1800s. It’s just too small. We can afford protectionism of a very few strategic industries, but if we try to protect unprofitable industries wholesale, the end result will surely be bankruptcy.
Theoretically creative destruction will mean new industries and technologies will be introduced so that people can move jobs- and looking at unemployment rates this must have happened, the laid off railway workers of the 1980s are now employed doing something else more valuable. We should spend more time incubating and nurturing these new firms than protecting old ones
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Panda,
Well maybe that $50 million would be better spent paying for cleaning up the sh*t that you farmers put into our rivers, rather than socialising the costs as you guys do now.
I couldn’t continue swimming in Lake Rotorua, because of the algae blooms resulting from nitrate leaching due to intensive farming in the catchment areas and the District Council is paying millions to enable the water quality of the lakes to recover.
Colleagues at a rafting company on the Kaituna that I worked at had to get tests to ascertain the effects of constant exposure to toxins from the blooms. In an ideal world the farmers would be paying for that.
How much does the government (tax payer) invest in dairy research through the CRIs? How about the $700 million “Fast Forward” wealthfare that the government will dish out to the already wealthy farmers? Funny how conservative farmers don’t complain about a handout for themselves yet stamp and scream when they’re asked to assume a small tax (“fart tax”) that will contribute towards meeting their obligations under the Kyoto protocol. Pretty sad really.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
I would tend to look towards Bush and the US corn lobby for ‘banging on about biofuels’, they are the greens you should be looking at. All those subsidies…gee! Price of a barrel of oil might have had something to do with it too, maybe.
Who’s ‘us’ Panda?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Panda, the Green Party has always strongly opposed biofuel production that either destroys forests that are carbon sinks or takes land out of food production into biofuel production.
The Green Party has never said biofuels are “the great Saviour of the planet” – they clearly are not.
The only place for biofuels is if they can be made from agricultural or industrial waste, and the potential from those sources is limited.
Jeanette Fitzsimons published this factsheet on biofuels last year.
Tell me, panda, what is the source of the disinformation that the Greens see biofuels as the “Saviour of the planet” – this is not the first time I have seen lies like this on blogs. Someone is obviously running a rather malicious campaign of porkies here!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
I don’t think it’s malicious toad (well, originally). People associated biofuels with low carbon, reducing GHGs=saving the planet. All of which is generally associated with green parties/’greenies’. Various ‘greens’ probably have been very keen on biofuels, and others not so much.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Frog
Pray tell what type of things the govt should be promoting as part of this “diverse economy”?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Toad
Its an inconvenient truth but its the law of Unintended consequences
you know as well as I do that Greenies around the world have been pushing for and building up a climate of fear amongst the general population and telling them that one of the ways to halt “climate change” is to convert to bio fuels
Some time in the last 18 months a tipping point was meet and every man and his dog including the Americans went ok, biofuels are the way to go
Bugger the consequences
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
*which* greenies?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
StephenR, I suspect panda means “greenies” like the Shrub and Cheney and their neocon apologists.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Like I said, corn lobby. And as a way to reduce dependence on imported oil, as they have being talking about since, hmm, round 2001? It might have something to do with that?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
And something to do with the War for Oil not going quite as well as they would have liked too, I suspect.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Panda what are you talking about. biofuels are being pushed in the US by the corn lobby.
BTW corn to biofuel isn’t even energy positive.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Of course, most people who wanted to promote biofuels for their own profit have used green-sounding arguments, because they figured it would help convince people.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
The problem with biofuels is that they are in part and in theory good, and partly and mostly in practice bad. It would be good if we could use algae to make the biofuels, but we don’t, we use crops. This is the bad bit.
But… the Green party have this misconception that the subtleties of that argument can be explained to the general public, whereas in rality it cant. The message needs to be readjusted to account for world realities.
Here it is: BIOFUELS ARE BAD.
Go with it.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Then it wouldn’t be too hard to say that they’re ‘rabidly anti-science luddites’ because they ‘ aren’t ‘ open to the advances offered by tallow, woodchips, algae, crop waste and whatever the other one is…
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
# kahikatea Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
> Of course, most people who wanted to promote biofuels for their own profit have used green-sounding arguments, because they figured it would help convince people.
an interesting historical parallel – Adolf Hitler often said the Third Reich was about bringing peace to Europe, because he figured it would get him more support.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
i wonder if this closure is linked with the planned fonterra style merge craig norgate is working on for the meat industries
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
the problem with that you said is it is all opinion, no facts or references.
———————–
dbuckley Says:
May 14th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
The problem with biofuels is that they are in part and in theory good, and partly and mostly in practice bad. It would be good if we could use algae to make the biofuels, but we don’t, we use crops. This is the bad bit.
But… the Green party have this misconception that the subtleties of that argument can be explained to the general public, whereas in rality it cant. The message needs to be readjusted to account for world realities.
Here it is: BIOFUELS ARE BAD.
Go with it.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
some biofuels are bad. fossil fuels will run out…
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)