We have dairy factories: Open Country in Whanganui, which is just in the process of doubling its footprint in Heads Rd, and Fonterra's Whareroa plant at Hawera, which produces about 2.5 per cent of our gross national product. Huge cheese plants at Eltham's Collingwood St and Bridge St are employers of note.
There are about half a million cows being milked in Taranaki, and labour units employed to milk each one of them. Almost every one of our nine secondary schools has foreign students, as do our tertiary providers.
Manufacturers are now a growing part of our local economy, making helmets and safety equipment, LED lighting, footwear, car parts, agricultural machinery, pet food, componentry for other manufacturers, stainless steel components for cheese-making plants, and manufacturing in support of the agricultural industry locally and overseas.
There are companies that provide the equipment for those primary industries like tanker trailers, logging trailers, gantries, feed wagons, rotary cowsheds and the like. They are supporting the prime winners from the TPPA.
Their future is more certain now than it was last week, before the signing of this agreement.
Whanganui District has about 17,000 workers across all sectors and South Taranaki 11,800. That means there is about 9 per cent of our workforce in the meat-processing industry.
There are 1800 people farming, just in South Taranaki, on 1700 farms - so expand that to include Whanganui farms and their associated workforce and anybody can see how this one sector is the difference in the viability of our electorate's economy.
This is without analysing the other forms of manufacture and export going on around our region.
People have rightly been concerned about the possible negative influence in pharmaceuticals, and there will be a cost of $2.2 million, but this is in the context of a $16 billion health budget.
The vast gains of the TPPA across New Zealand will easily account for added costs to the funding of Pharmac on the taxpayer, and we know that the costs of prescriptions will not increase.
Another plus is that labour markets in TPPA countries will have to abide by international rules as well, such as the implantation of a unionised workforce in countries such as Vietnam. This starts to swing the balance back in favour of sophisticated workforces such as ours.
I have often asked how much free education, welfare and healthcare we would have without farming, because of the huge tax take from all the incomes derived from these industries. The corollary of that question is: how much more will our economy be enhanced with a free trade agreement with 40 per cent of the world population? With that population being made up of comparatively well-off people, and a growing middle-class in those countries with its increased disposable income, and the answer has to be - a lot better off.
We have yet to see the fine detail but early indications are encouraging for our local electorate. Using the naive example of the meat industry, Whanganui and Central and South Taranaki have to be optimistic about the future.
The nay-sayers will continue to beat their drum but, those who provide employment, work in support of those businesses that stand alongside primary industry, those who want to grow exports in order to build business, and grow jobs in Whanganui and South and Central Taranaki know the value of this trade deal.
There is no job security in tilting at windmills.
