By: Larry Williams | Friday, April 20, 2012

Crafar Farms

The Chinese purchase of the Crafar farms has been approved.

This was predictable.

Despite the rabid and hysterical anti campaign the OIO has recommended the sale proceed. That has been accepted by the ministers.

I don't think there is any question that the Chinese company will add value over and above a NZ buyer.

They had 27 conditions put upon them.

Their intention is to market NZ dairy to the tune of $100m over the next five years in China and Asia. They are looking for a New Zealand partner to process higher value product to export to China. That partner could be Fonterra or it could be a joint venture.

No NZ buyer was offering this.

16 dairy farms is hardly a massive assault on our productive land.

The political opposition has been disingenuous. They have now loaded the gun. Their official policy is to more or less block all farm sales. This is incredibly dangerous. It’s also incredibly dumb.

In Labour's case it’s also incredibly hypocritical. In their nine years in office they allowed 650,000 hectares to be flogged off. The equivalent of the Crafar farms every month.

SkyCity

The more this deal is attacked, the more attractive the deal looks.

Conspiracies aside, the Government is cutting a deal.

Opposition parties argued against the deal because of the increase in gambling problems caused by the extra pokie machines. It became evident that this deal might actually reduce the number of pokies in the city depending on the detail and the sinking lid policy. So the anti mob won't win that one. 

Now they have changed tack and gone after the PM for promoting the deal, accusing him of dirty tactics. It’s hard to see them winning this one either.

There is no question some media are supporting the opposition to the convention centre.

The Herald looks like they want to scuttle it. TV3 puts out a poll claiming that Kiwis are against the deal overwhelmingly. They didn't appear to supply any detail about the numbers or survey method. Hardly scientific.

Sport

The Breakers can make it two championships in a row if they beat the Perth Wildcats in Perth tonight. This is a tall order. If you were to lay a bet on this I think you would go with Perth, and it will come back to Auckland next Tuesday for the decider.

The Kiwis against the Kangaroos at Eden Park. The Kiwis have so much talent, but we all know what can happen here and that’s why ticket sales have been slow. The problem is that even with the Kiwis bulging so much talent, nobody would be surprised if the Aussies took them apart. We beat them every so often, but invariably Australia is just too good.