Industry deserves our help

It was reassuring on Saturday morning to see Wanganui company Pacific Helmets advertising for someone to fill a new job in its finance office.

Reassuring on several fronts - hiring is always a positive thing and the job offered was suitable for a newly qualified accounting or business graduate. It can be difficult for those newly qualified to find work, and keeping such people in provincial centres is essential for a region to do well.

It also signals that Wanganui's manufacturing base, which has been whittled away in the past four decades, continues to make strides in an increasingly difficult environment.

This week the Opposition delivered its inquiry into manufacturing, recommending more government support of the sector and a revamp of the Reserve Bank Act.

Pacific Helmets chief executive David Bennett was one of the manufacturers who was at the launch of the inquiry, making a plea for a change in exchange rate policy so it did not take such a big chunk out of exporters' profitability.

The wish list from the review was outlined by Cam Moore, chairman of the inquiry: Monetary policy reform aimed at a lower and more stable exchange rate; tax incentives to support investment in manufacturing; fixing broken markets that create excessive infrastructure costs, such as electricity; tax credits for research and development investment; and a government procurement programme that favours Kiwi-made.

The Government has naturally come out swinging over the review, and it is patently ridiculous to blame them for what is impeding manufacturing. Successive governments have not implemented measures which could have alleviated the obstacles the sector has to deal with.

However, they are in power now and can start making changes.

There has been a call for cross-party agreement on how to assist our manufacturing sector. That's sensible and, if political acrimony can be sheathed, it should be possible to sort out.

If not a plan (which has overtones of state planning), perhaps further measures to ensure businesses such as Pacific Helmets stay put, stay productive and stay profitable.