16 MARCH 2016

Global Dairy Trade Down – National Out of Ideas

New Zealand First says the National Government is completely out of ideas and it is time for farmers to swap over to New Zealand First.

“The latest fall in global dairy prices isn’t a surprise,” says New Zealand First Leader and Member of Parliament for Northland Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“The so-called Futures Market these so-called experts base all their predictions on is run by the NZX when the TAB would do a better job.

“The NZX is not a real dairy futures market with no physical product involved and it provides more false hope than anything else. In contrast, the United States’ CME more accurately showed dairy prices were going sideways.

“It is time for farmers to drop, cover and hold but all they get from National is platitudes about resilience. As for the other parties, can you really trust them?

“New Zealand First is the only Party that saw this coming so lodged an amendment to the Receiverships Act to level the playing field with the big banks; the Receiverships (Agricultural Debt Mediation) Amendment Bill.

“We also want to reform the Reserve Bank Act in favour of exporters and not consumptive importers. We also back fundamental reform of the RMA to reduce costs and red-tape as opposed to National’s limp sop to its Maori Party mates.

“We are the only party for a Russian trade agreement, the world’s number two dairy import market that an ex-banker like Mr Key has actively tried to wreck. Farmers are sick of the hearing about the TPPA when even in the US it is a policy dog.

“We also want to deal with the staggering cost of receiverships that sees people are stripped off all their equity and dignity. This will help farmers to restart as would opening up Landcorp to both sharemilking and sharefarming.

“The inaction of the banks after the latest OCR cut further underlines the need for the Kiwi-owned banks to be supported into full commercial lending,” Mr Peters said.

ENDS

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