Northland MPs missing in action

I have read several articles from various media outlets that have reported on topical political happenings around our country. There seems to a common thread from the Government that only the Prime Minister, Grant Robertson or the minister of everything, Chris Hipkins, is allowed to burst onto TV or into print.

On occasions the unfortunate Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, who is the fall guy, is tossed in to deliver totally unreasonable policy that most see as destructive to all farmers and our prospects of being a world provider of healthy food.

Northland as a group of rural supply towns will be non-viable financial areas when the crazy 20 per cent loss of production is enforced and the average farm will not have the income to purchase the necessities to run their businesses.

The poor management of our dollar has created inflation, which in my opinion is only the first part of recession and for the following reason.

The NZ dollar was buying US70 cents at the beginning of the year, today the same NZ$ buys US56c.

Every article we produce or import has a component of overseas input that is paid for in US currency.

At US70c it takes NZ$1.42 to buy a US$1, but at US56c our dollar takes NZ$1.78.

This equates to an extra 36c per dollar dearer now our dollar is getting weaker. Who pays for this devaluation? You do, the consumer.

If these figures are not accurate, I stand to be corrected. But if I am right, as I believe I am, where are the Northland members of the Government — Emily Henderson, Willow-Jean Prime, and Kelvin Davis — who seem to believe they are voted in to tell us, the Northlanders, what Wellington is doing to us.

Can any of the Government representatives show they have spoken up for us? If they have, I can find any record they have spoken at all.

If people find they can’t feed their families and cannot pay the mortgage because of this poor management, we will only have one group to blame: Emily, Willow-Jean and Kelvin who are inside the Labour tent and haven’t spoken up, so they are who we will be calling.

John Bain

Whangārei

Trouble out in the waters

Standard & Poor’s recent decision to pause further consideration of indicative adjustments to New Zealand’s local authority and sovereign credit ratings, because of uncertainty and inadequate information about the practical details of the proposed Three Waters, is what could ultimately sink the reforms.

To work, the Three Waters reforms are reliant on access to enormous amounts of international debt financing at a reasonable cost.

Standard & Poor’s has flagged that, among other things, it is concerned about a lack of clarity regarding what assets are to be transferred and when, whether or not councils would receive payments in return for their assets, and how large any such payments would be, how much legacy debt councils would be left to carry and how the potentially 1200-plus Te Mana o te Wai statements from iwi and hapū would work in practice without overwhelming the water services entities and adding massively to costs. These questions are pretty fundamental to be still outstanding this late in the day.

Standard & Poor’s decision to pause rating consideration will draw attention to these thorny questions and spook international creditors, which in all likelihood will bring the