#5 - Brian Croft 2008-08-12 19:13 - (Reply)

Hi John, Hope all is going well on the Campaign trail? Your team has my vote. I wonder if you have any have any plans with Trade Agreement in China ? I Own a small business manufacturing Lounge Furniture and we also do an amount of Commercial Booth Seating Fitouts. We employee 6 staff and turn over approx 1.2 mill used to be just under 2 mill until down turn in the economy 2.5 years ago, when some bright Govt spark stood up and told NZ stop spending money because of oversea's deficit, what he should have said was stop spending money on imported goods, things have never been the same since. We sell direct to Public and designers because of the quality of our Furniture. The Focus of our business is NZ Made and we only use NZ Tasman leather we only survive by making quality, custom sizing and thankfully there is still a lot of NZ'ders who want to support NZ Manufacturers. Over the years under the Labour reign I have seen numerous well known NZ Manufacturers shut their doors because it is too hard out there mainly because the Chinese imports are heavily subsidised by the Chinese Govt. Like a lot of other manufacturing there is no NZ Standard for Furniture any body can import anything. There are very few apprentiships, very few qualified Upholstery workers craftsmen, most that are left in the industry are what we call staple gun hands. My lease is up for renewal on our building and I am in deliberation wether it is viable to carry on a unlevel playing field any longer. These Business's used to be the Backbone of our country, now the only Business in NZ that is relatively safe is a Plumbing . Electrical, Building or Mechanical or Politics or Religion. Maybe you should talk to NZ Manufacturers and try to put some confidence back into the Manufacturing in New Zealand? . The majoriity of Manufacturing Business's in NZ are hurting big time Manufacturing employs alot of employees who have very little skills other than factory work without these jobs unemployment figures are sure to rise. I loath going to the Supermarket shopping trying to fing items that are NZ Made, looking for Country of Origin because so many NZ Companies have shifted manufacturing to China and try to disguse where they are manufactured - have to look at the small print. Have these goods come down in price - no not when you consider the difference in the cost in manufacturing. Instead of maybe focusing of geting people on the DPB back to work straight away, maybe we need to first ensure there is going to be job security first? PS When you get your feet under the table maybe you can also change the retirement senario for Politicians. It makes me mad to find the likes of Nango Tanges can retire after his second term of Office on full pension, what has this guy done apart from try to legalise Marajuarna, let alone the rest of the Green Party. Best of Luck and Regards Brian Croft DESIGNER FURNITURE FACTORY New Address: 254 Church Street, Onehunga Ph: (09) 636 5727