The Northern Advocate has quizzed local candidates on some of the issues important to Northlanders. The questions have come from readers and Advocate staff. Here are the Northland electorate candidate responses to the first question - continuing on from yesterday - what are your policies around taking our raw materials to finished goods to add jobs and value to our region?
David Clendon, Green Party:
The Green Party wants to build a smarter economy that works for every single New Zealander.
Currently, our economy is only helping a few people, while too many people are unable to find jobs or to find jobs that pay enough to make ends meet. Firstly, we will deliver personal and business tax cuts to everyone by placing a charge on carbon polluters.
We will also create more jobs through making our economy more dynamic and innovative. The Green Party will invest $1 billion of new funding for research and development. Innovation lies at the heart of a smart, green economy.
We will also support adding value to our current commodities in agricultural, horticultural and forestry production. In addition to this, the Green Party will increase funding to rail and ensure sufficient funding for roads, so to ensure that the infrastructure is able to support the effective transport of goods to market.
Over the last six years, there has been too much reliance on low-value commodities to prop up our economy. However, economies that innovate do better over the long term, creating good jobs that pay well. New Zealand cannot afford to rely on simple commodities and low wages to sustain our economy. By increasing innovation, not only will we increase the fields and jobs available, we will also be able to increase wages. The Green Party wants an economy that works smarter and this is what we will deliver.
Willow-Jean Prime, Labour Party:
We're exporting more of our raw commodities overseas, rather than manufacturing them into value-added products here in New Zealand. A healthy, growing export manufacturing sector is vital to building a wealthy New Zealand and creating well-paying jobs for our people. Labour will stand alongside industries and sectors to help them grow, with specific plans for forestry and wood products, ICT, manufacturing, primary industries/meat trade and regions.
Willow-Jean Prime.
With Labour's economic upgrade, the forest and wood products industry will create skilled, well-paid jobs, and help grow New Zealand's economy by capturing a greater share of our resource value and keeping it at home.
Our policies encourage investment in the processing component of the industry to move the focus from logs to higher-value products with accelerated depreciation; promote leading-edge innovation through research and development tax credits; provide greater security of raw product supply to give long-term confidence to processing investment; establish Forestry Taskforces for the long-term unemployed; and ensure the sector is underpinned by suitable infrastructure and a skilled and safe workforce.
Further to this, Labour will reform monetary policy to achieve a fairer and more stable exchange rate; change the tax settings to direct more capital investment into the productive economy; introduce measures to increase the national savings pool and improve access to capital for businesses; and work to lower unnecessary compliance costs for businesses where consistent with workers' rights, environmental standards, and quality assurance.
Labour will also invest in regional development. Labour will make an initial investment of at least $200 million over four years in a Regional Development Fund for projects that create jobs and growth; invest in upgrading regional ICT; invest in youth training and skills in the regions and appoint a Minister of Regional Development at Cabinet level.
Mike Sabin, MP, National Party:
Diversity across our economy is important to ensure as market demands and economic conditions ebb and flow so that productivity, growth and therefore job creation can be achieved. We believe value-add products are key for our exporters. Take forestry - one of the main industries in our region - international export markets hold the key to the continued growth of value from our forest, and wood processing sector. We have some excellent examples of this with Tri-board in Kaitaia and Mt Pokaka in Kerikeri.
Mike Sabin
The key lies in greater levels of domestic wood processing and a higher proportion of value-add products. The challenge - and the opportunity - is to lift the value of exports by targeting the right products at the right markets. This Government is working hard to negotiate free trade agreements (FTA). All 12 key markets have either signed an FTA, or have one under negotiation.
In 2010, the Ministry for Primary Industries committed to work alongside the sector on its long-term direction. The outcome was the landmark 2012 Woodco report and the WoodScape economic assessment. It showed engineered timber products offered investors returns higher than 10 per cent. The difference in value between a raw sawlog and a finished LVL beam, or a CLT panel, represents a real opportunity for the industry, and for our regional economy.
With the expansion potential for geothermal power in Kaikohe, value-add, large-scale timber processing is a real and positive prospect. We are investing more in research, development and innovation than ever before to encourage diversification and value-add, alongside broadening our trade opportunities to provide opportunities for businesses to add value and grow jobs.
David Wilson, Democrats for Social Credit:
Improving our infrastructure is key to encouraging businesses to our region to undertake processing of raw materials into added value products for domestic use and export.
David Wilson.
We would upgrade roads, rail, linking the rail system to Marsden Point, and bridges, all of which will remain in public ownership, and undertake regional flood control, soil conservation, energy conservation and water quality projects, funded by a Reserve Bank sourced Community Credit Programme. A Local Authorities Loans Board would be re-established to decide, in consultation with the region's four councils (not a unitary body), and voter-approved initiatives, the priority of capital works in the region. Full government control over power companies would be re-established, and the requirement for them to pay big profits back to government would cease. Power prices would come down, and this would benefit new value-added industries as well as households.
An enhanced roll-out of modern information and communication technologies would enable businesses to decentralise and operate efficiently in the region.
We would remove GST ($15 per $100) completely and replace it with a transactions tax of 10c per $100 on withdrawals from all bank accounts. The removal of GST would immediately provide an increase in purchasing power for all households and generate more economic activity, giving our towns a much needed boost. The new tax would hit particularly the paper shufflers on the money and financial markets and encourage more investment in productive businesses instead. We would better fund universities and other research institutions so that they can carry out real research, not just investigations for their business sponsors. We would control our overseas funds to prevent speculators forcing it "up" (or "down") for their own personal unearned profit.
