Damien O’Connor: NZ united on global trade
When it comes to international trade, politicians from all sides of the aisle are united, says Labour's trade spokesman Damien O'Connor.
Your old mate reckons plenty of the current crop of MPs in Parliament would struggle to read, let alone make laws for this country.
The Hound was reminded of this by a mate of his attending the recent Beef + Lamb annual meeting in Timaru, which some MPs turned up to.
Ag Minister Damien O’Connor couldn’t attend because he was under security watch due to the Christchurch shootings and was replaced by a MPI policy wonk.
However, the Nats’ climate change spokesman Todd Muller was invited to speak on his work and seemed to impress the audience.
However, the same can’t be said for NZ First list MP Mark Patterson who was not down to speak. But when given the opportunity – by all reports – he completely misread the room and went on a long, boring rant about how great the current government was.
Additional tariffs introduced by the Chinese Government last month on beef imports should favour New Zealand farmers and exporters.
Primary sector leaders have praised the government and its officials for putting the Indian free trade deal together in just nine months.
Primary sector leaders have welcomed the announcement of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and New Zealand.
Dairy farmers are still in a good place despite volatile global milk prices.
Legal controls on the movement of fruits and vegetables are now in place in Auckland’s Mt Roskill suburb, says Biosecurity New Zealand Commissioner North Mike Inglis.
Arable growers worried that some weeds in their crops may have developed herbicide resistance can now get the suspected plants tested for free.

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