Mike's Minute: I can help Steve Abel

I can help Steve Abel. 

Steve is the Green's agriculture bloke and he wants an urgent inquiry into the Wattie’s and Heinz mess in Hawkes Bay. 

He is wasting his time. Not because he shouldn’t be concerned, because he should. We should all be concerned. 

But the answers he seeks are already readily available. 

He asks about four main things: the regulatory environment, energy costs, foreign owner indifference, and anti-competitive behaviour from the supermarkets. 

The website Newsroom wrote a solid piece about all this several weeks ago in which it was broadly concluded the troubles in Hawke’s Bay have been coming for a decade, so some late, breaking alarmism via yet another committee addresses nothing. 

Costs in this country are too high. I refer you to Paul Conway's speech last week to a bunch of financial operators. We are unproductive and have been for years. 

Supermarkets have indeed played a part. The home brand scenario damaged the more premium brands and Wattie's etc have suffered because of it. 

Now, is that anti-competitive? Or offering more competition? Does the punter want choice and price range? I would have thought yes. 

On the energy costs, Wattie's and Heinz have both spoken to this. Our energy costs are ruinous. Gas, or lack of it, has killed a lot of manufacturing. The Greens might like to ask themselves why they got obsessed with solar panels and banned gas before there were enough solar panels to cover the energy gaps. 

The old regulatory environment is an interesting one. Labour and Nicola Willis have jawboned rules and regulations and watchdogs and Commerce Commission investigations, but to what avail? Nothing has changed, which either means there is nothing to change, or they are useless. 

Foreign owner indifference, I would suggest, that sounds a bit xenophobic. Yes, I know what he means – could a massive player in Detroit cut ties without losing sleep in little old New Zealand? Sure. 

But no one who invests and runs businesses does so with indifference. 

Between the dumping, the cheap stuff consumers prefer, the size of our market, and the ruinous cost of energy, it's all there as a combustible recipe to blow up a lot of business models. 

Peas in a bag and peaches in a tin are the victims. The inquiry is not needed. 

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