Last week’s unemployment figures were certain to prompt questions in parliament and they did.
But they didn’t get the answers the questioners wanted:
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I was just pointing out that the member says that the mining sector is bad for the New Zealand economy, except that if you look at the unemployment rates by region around New Zealand, you find that the lowest unemployment rate is in a region known as Taranaki, which currently has a 3.8 percent unemployment rate. And if you want to look across the Tasman, the lowest unemployment rate is in a state called Western Australia, which happens to be very focused on mining and resources. So if the member wants to say that he is concerned about jobs for New Zealanders, he needs to turn round and go to some of these regions where the Greens have been protesting against opportunities for New Zealanders to have jobs, and renege on what he said previously
Dr Russel Norman: Should not a Government that really wants to increase jobs be fixing the broken monetary policy to give our exporters and domestic manufacturers a level playing field against their international competition, and focus its efforts on industries that create jobs for New Zealanders rather than profits for foreign investors?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member seems to be advocating, as his economic policy, New Zealand taking a one-way bet against world currencies. Well, that generally ends in tears. If the member is actually concerned about jobs—actually concerned about jobs—he should visit places like Northland, which has the highest unemployment rate, hold a public meeting, and demand they support mining and exploration in Northland. He should go to Gisborne and tell them to support oil and gas and mineral exploration. He should support the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill in the House today. He should support the Government building transport infrastructure, he should support our changes to the emissions trading scheme, and he should support our efforts to attract—
The opposition keep asking where are the jobs?
They don’t like the answer and as the minister points out oppose every step the government takes to help businesses create jobs.
They like to use the word sustainable and sustainable jobs aren’t those which use taxpayers money to employ people.
They are jobs which employ people to produce things which people in other countries want to buy.
Many of those potential jobs are in primary production and mining.
It’s easy to say don’t do any of that because of the impact on the environment but if we want more jobs we have to do those things and in a way which minimises or mitigates any negative impacts.
Homepaddock 
Labour’s solution to solve unemployment is to create more taxes thereby providing opportunities for more tax lawyers and accountants to administer it all.
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Andrei – and more opportunities for more university staff to train the lawyers and acouuntants.
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You want jobs.. here are the jobs..
Regulate the export of unprocessed log. We export 11 million cubic metres of raw log. If we processed this log into a square or cant we would create approx 15,000 direct and indirect jobs. We no longer export raw sheep so why logs?
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when you ask” where are the jobs” the answer is not “potential jobs” or “assistance in job creation”. If you head your post “here are the jobs could you perhaps say where the jobs are? Might help. D’oh.
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Bulaman – when we put so much effort into free trade and have so much to gain from it I wouldn’t support regulation to stop exporting logs. If it can’t be done cost-effectively here without regulation those would be very expensive jobs.
Dave – I’ve used the headline before in posts which show existing jobs but accept that this time it would have been better to say here could be jobs when I was writing about potential ones.
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The key to minor processing (squares and cants) is that we can be world class and competitive. Productivity rates are very high (10+ cubic metres per man per day) and it provides the low tech jobs the economy really needs.
Both sides are happy because there is further processing required at the buyer end so they can benefit from the cheap labour rates. Live sheep export has been regulated out (animal health excuse) so this is in the “National” interest!
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“it would have been better to say here could be jobs….”
LOL! you may as well say “here could not be jobs”. Will the next post be potentially writing about potential jobs that don’t yet exist and potentially may not do so, potentially for some time yet?.
#wherearethosejobsagain?
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Bulaman – If we can be world class and competitive why do we need regulation?
Dave – how about here will be jobs when we’ve got more irrigation mining?
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Excellent Bulaman – instead of posting about it in a blog comment why don’t you, raise the money to build the plant, develop the markets for your product, hire the workers and get it done.
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We need regulation because without it our competitors/customers can inflate the log price and “kill off” local processing. This short term effect results in lower log price in the long term once the local processors are gone. In the last 5 years 100 to 200 sawmills have gone due (in part) to export log price spikes. It is now trending down and forest growers are hurting. The result is that investment is driven away because your raw material can dissappear overnight. ETS does the same thing .
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homepaddock- not good enough. Like most Nats, you have no strategy or goal let alone an answer to where the jobs are, and that is why you cant say where the jobs are going to come from, or where they could be, let alone where they are.
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Dave – I did say where they are going to come from – farming (through irrigation) and mining.
Jobs don’t come out of thin air. They come from businesses having the confidence to employ more people. That comes from increasing productivity or selling more in existing or new businesses.
New businesses opportunities will come from irrigation and mining. In an earlier post I wrote about how we’re already seeing job opportunities from irrigation – two new houses on two neighbours’ farms and a new dairy shed built on one of those this year; a new house and dairy shed on our farm last year and another new house this year.
That’s a lot of construction work in a very small area and it’s not just on our and our neighbours’ farms it’s happening on.
Those new houses are for extra staff and their families and there are flow on jobs in servicing and supplying the farms and staff which create new jobs in town.
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Andrei 10:49am HP 11:31am.
Simplify the archaic ” Tax System.” to an Expenditure Tax..
With NO CLAW BACK. .
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farming and mining… lets see how many farms and mines there will be in say Auckland CIty, Wellington CIty, Northland, where most of the unemployed are? #pipedream
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Farming and mining are both options for Northland. If jobs aren’t where the people are they could move where the jobs are. A growing export-based economy creates job opportunities in cities too.
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