Kiwi politicians should have the foresight

It is very worrying seeing thousands of Kiwis being made redundant.  Manufacturing plants and service sectors closing down, sizing down or relocating to China.  There are plans to sell New Zealand assets to China which is said to bring in billions of dollars.  How long is this billions of dollars going to last after the assets have been sold? What is going to be left of New Zealand?

It is baffling that despite all these so called "smart and experienced minds" in our government, no one can engineer a growth programme in New Zealand without having to sell any asset to China or any other foreign nation.

With the high rate of unemployment and sickness benefit in the country, there is no positive indicator that things are going to get better.  There are no positive plans or programmes to give Kiwis the confidence that more jobs would be created and kept in New Zealand. The only prospect of having more jobs is the oil exploration programme despite lots of protest by environmentalists.

The government has to find a way to create more jobs and keep the jobs in New Zealand for the Kiwis. We cannot keep comparing ourselves with Australia and try to emulate what they are doing.  Whether it works for Australia in the long run or not, Australia is very different to New Zealand in geographical sense. Besides, what works for Australia now may not work in the next five years.  We have to start thinking independently. Just because, the rest of the world is opening their doors to China, it does not mean that New Zealand should as well. The world is not able to impose any sanctions against China for its currency manipulation which has caused major disruption in the world economy.  China is investing in almost every country for natural resources.  We are all depending on China because it has become a feeding hand.  This is a bad habit that we need to get rid off.  The more we are reliant on China the more detrimental it is for our economy.  Lets look at the US for a moment......China has invested trillions of dollars in the US Treasury Bonds.  China has got the US by its throat (as a figure of speech).  As a result, the US cannot take any actions against China no matter what it does.  Most of the countries where China has invested in would be crippled economically because they have been reliant on the feeding hand.  New Zealand has to wake up and engineer a growth programme internally without having to sell any assets.

Kiwis are very clever and are respected for their ingenuity.  It is time that we capitalise on that.  We have to structure similar programmes which Fonterra has with the Federated Farmers.  We have to create manufacturing programmes in New Zealand in a similar way to created more jobs and KEEP them in New Zealand.