Landcorp


The spin on Landorp is that its got burgeoning debt, the Government is not coming to the rescue, and they need sell some farms.

Landcorp owns 158,000ha of farmland and manages or leases another 226,000ha. It runs 1.6 million stock units on 137 properties.

Landcorp got sucked into the dairy conversion frenzy. Bill English is indicating Landcorp is strapped for cash.

This is codswallop.

Landcorp has assets of around $1.8 billion and total liabilities of $360 million -its debt level is conservative and manageable so they don't HAVE to sell farms.

Labour are in a lather over the sale of Landcorp farms. Andrew Little is agitated again -he says the farms might be gobbled up by foreigners. Clayton Cosgrove reckons English has gone back on his word over state assets. Well, possibly he has.

But here's the thing : Landcorp made a profit of just $1 million in the last six months of 2014. A return of $1 million on assets worth $1.8 billion is not a business, its a dogs breakfast.

The business wouldn't survive in the private sector. The board would be gone, a restructure of the business initiated and assets sold.

Accordingly, Landcorp farms should be flogged off. Governments shouldn't be running farms.

There's no need for a fire sale but at the very least a managed partial privatisation is clearly in order.



GST


Reaction to the pending GST levied on shopping is unambiguous - the tax is fair but it won't make one iota of difference to local retailers.

The tax involved is actually paltry but its expected to grow exponentially.

Collecting the tax will be full of complexity and it runs the risk of driving overseas firms out of the New Zealand market.

This is what local retailers are gunning for but it would be the worst possible outcome for the consumer.

It stands to reason that if we impose GST on overseas online transactions those countries will impose their taxes on our firms selling them - our firms could be priced out of the market.

Collecting the tax on digital purchases from Amazon and iTunes is easy but I'm betting that collecting the tax on non-digital goods at the border is riddled with problems and will cost more than what is collected.

The policy is a mix of an attempted tax grab and protectionism.