April 17, 2013
Taniwha-dragon timber plan dreaming
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has dismissed talk of Māori forest owners collaborating with Chinese firms as dreaming.
Māori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples has been encouraging discussions between the Central North Island iwi and China National Buildings and Materials about setting up wood processing plants.
Mr Peters says Dr Sharples is charging ahead without having his government policies to back up the forestry industry.
“We’re sending over ship loads of logs in their most raw and under-developed state to provide hundreds and thousands of jobs to foreign economies and billions and billions of profits to foreign economies. In fact, that’s our third biggest export but we get very limited value from that export because we have not supported this export industry,” he says.
Winston Peters says policies which keep the dollar high are destroying what is left of New Zealand’s timber processing industry.
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