Live sheep exports could create Kiwi consumer backlash

The New Zealand Herald asked readers what they thought about the prospect of resuming live sheep exports with some worrying responses.

The overwhelming sentiment was that the trade was deplorable with many saying they would protest by not buying New Zealand lamb.

As said in previous posts, even if the reality is far different from what Sue Kedgely is promising it will be a difficult business to push in the current consumer market place where top chefs such as Jamie Oliver preach daily on welfare for animals.

It seems no matter what stringent conditions MAF comes up with there will be a large majority of people bent on destroying the trade.

Here's a sample of some of the comments:

"I will stop buying lamb in protest if this takes off!"

"It's inexcusably and unnecessarily cruel.It also destroys jobs and businesses for New Zealanders.A return to live sheep exports signals a triumph of greed over not only the value of humane treatment of animals but also the expectation that our first priority is to maintaining the maximum benefit of our efforts going to our own people.It creates one more field in which we are seen to have lesser expertise than the rest of the world and worse, lesser morality and standards of decency.This suggestion bears a remarkable similarity to Fonterra and the melamine scandal which also impacted both human beings and animals: a morality based only on convenience and profit to a select few at a cost of suffering to the majority - human or animal.It seems the tide in the world has turned. No longer is humanity progressing toward higher principles (however despised 'colonialism' is in modern times) but returning to the lowest common denominator to be found in the characteristics of our trading partners."

"Yes to live sheep exports provided they are flown there in economy class with flight attendant service."

Protectionist measures could sink world trade by 8%

World Trade Organisation director-general Pascal Lamy gave some serious warnings in an interview with Brian Fallow in the NZ Herald this morning.

Lamy was blunt - the stakes in the Doha trade talks have increased substantially as nations seek to protect their own economies. In layman's terms, it could be worse if it wasn't for Doha.

Lamy said we were 80% towards achieving the outcomes from that round but his organisation has also released information showing that if nations were to push the boundaries of present tariff levels, world trade could sink by up to 8%.

There are then two concerns:

1 As the squeeze gets tighter I think we can assume many will push those boundaries

2 This will lead to a deeper recession yet and if we don't think we're really in as much poo as other countries that will soon change.

And finally, I wholeheartedly agree with comments on http://homepaddock.wordpress.com/ about protectionism, considering the furore of Swazi last week and the complete farce the bailing out of Mascot Finance has become.

Here's what Ele Ludemann had to say:

"Protectionism comes in many forms, not just direct subsidies. Feel-good campaigns which encourage people to buy-local and outrage when local firms lose out to foreign competitors as happened last week when Swazi lost the contract to supply our Defence Force are protectionist too.
We can not expect others to open their borders to our produce if we shut our doors to theirs and we will pay a very high price if we give our trading partners an excuse to buy local themselves.
New Zealand has a lot to lose if short-term recession-busting measures result in subsidies and tariffs which will protect our competitors and reverse the painfully slow but steady progress towards global free trade.
But every other country will lose out in the long term too because the only fair trade is free trade."

PS - congrats to Ele for just completing her 2000th outstanding blog. If you haven't yet, get online and read her blog. It is quite simply superb!