I’ve spent the weekend trying to figure out if the New Zealand Prime Minister has done a good job for the country in her overseas trip or not.

Firstly, the new extended OE deal which sees working holiday visas extended by a year both in the UK and for UK citizens coming here. And allows it for up to 35 year olds

It’s not surprising that the UK was prepared to give a little on this. Their labour shortage is even more acute than ours. Not only have they suffered Covid lockdowns and all the other pandemic related economic pressure, but it all came on top of Brexit.

Brexit saw a lot of cheap European labour excluded from the UK and according to the Office for National Statistics, there were 1.3 million positions waiting to be filled in the first quarter of 2022, nearly 500,000 more than before the pandemic struck.  Of course they want more New Zealanders.

UK citizens have reciprocal rights but will that influx match the outflow of Kiwis.

I doubt if it will.  

Firstly, there are too many people telling our young folk that this country is a dog so that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Secondly, if you remember, this current Government was elected on a promise to reign in immigration. Remember? Lots of you voted for it. Or did you not read the manifesto?

Then there’s the Free Trade Deal with Europe.

Many complained we folded and maybe we did. Certainly right up to the eve of the signing the Prime Minister was saying we would walk away. But my feeling is that Europe was prepared to play even harder.

After all, we are just 5 million people on the other side of the world opposed to their 500 million.

They have war on their doorstep and 27 nations whose farmers are deeply suspicious of us taking their business and there’s a growing sense that shipping our foods halfway around the globe is bad for the planet.

So I look at the benefits.

It’s better than any Free Trade agreement we’ve had before because we’ve never had one. This has taken 14 years to wrangle and I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t want to get into another decade long negotiation.

It’s not bad for dairy and beef. But it’s pretty great for horticulture, wine, honey and seafood. And how long have we been going on about diversification?

Dairy and beef’s beef with the deal is that it affords them no growth, but with many already saying we’re at peak cow where were they expecting to get the product from? 

Their complaints also centre on a dollar value of current exports, but the deal is in fact based on tonnage. So if you want to make more money, sell stuff for more. Surely this is another factor towards adding more value to our exports to sell them for more.

I see this deal as a chance to reset ourselves. To keep doing what we’re doing but add to our arsenal of products and markets.