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By Hon Dr Megan Woods, Labour spokesperson for Manufacturing and Industry The workers losing their jobs at the McCain’s Hastings vegetable processing factory don’t need economists to tell them that the economy isn’t working for them. They already know it. So do the workers at Heinz Wattie’s, at Kinleith Mill, at Winstone Pulp, at Sealord, and at the many businesses that have shut their doors in the last two years. New Zealand’s manufacturing sector has faced headwinds for a long time, but the past year has seen flash points that will be much harder to recover from. Under this Government, we’ve seen output fall sharply, and the economy weaken. High interest rates and cheap imported goods produced with low-cost labour are squeezing our domestic market. Internationally, our distance from major markets makes it harder to compete. Low productivity growth and a tax system that has consistently rewarded property speculation over productive enterprise have left our industrial base more fragile than it should be. No one party owns that history, but a government that understood the problem would have come in with a plan to turn it around. Since National took office, 36,000 New Zealanders have lost their jobs. Business liquidations have hit a fifteen-year high. Each closure, each lost shift, each production line that goes quiet hits suppliers, communities, and regional economies in ways that ripple outward for years. The recent closures of regional manufacturing plants – particularly in timber, pulp, and food processing – show how exposed some of our communities are to single employers. And in places like Hawke’s Bay, losing McCain’s doesn’t just impact the workers and their families, it impacts everyone in New Zealand. It impacts growers, who now have fewer places to sell their produce; consumers, who will face even higher food prices; and regions […]