Posts by Chris Waugh
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Hard News: You down with TPP?, in reply to nzlemming,
not relevant
Though if the TPPA does come into force and we continue to allow cowboy operators in the dairy industry who see potential new markets opening up....
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Hard News: Switched on Gardener: to what…, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
And can we tell Hekia Parata to piss off as well?
Reading your article and now this, I would rate "piss off" as a touch too polite.
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Hard News: You down with TPP?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
My non-lawyer understanding is that it is illegal for anybody who is not a registered dairy exporter to export dairy products from NZ, that's including posting a couple of cans to friends or relatives overseas. So the grey market is a darker shade of grey than most equivalents. I've seen more than a few articles in the Chinese press of late saying "it's all back on!" now that the MPI/Customs crackdown has ended.
I've been following this issue the last few months, and it's quite worrying. I know of one not small producer whose products have failed AQSIQ inspection at least twice this year (assuming, of course, that the brands' claims as to who made the powder are true). I've heard of others who import cheap non-NZ powder, package it in NZ, and ship to China. I've come across two brands that certainly seem to have trademarks and companies registered (often to a distinctly residential-looking address) in NZ, but seem to operate out of a Chinese port, and it's really hard to tell where their product is manufactured. And there's the 假洋牌/jia3 yang2pai2 (can't do tones properly on the crappy old office computer)/fake Western brand phenomenon in which an entirely Chinese company slaps "made in New Zealand" on otherwise purely Chinese product and sells it for a small fortune.
Ok, one of these problems NZ can do very little about. I do know some in the industry are working hard to do what they can to protect NZ's reputation because the understand the risk they face if dodgy operators undermine it. But I don't see much evidence of effort on the part of the government (politicians or bureaucrats) to clean up the dodgier parts of the industry.
Not relevant to the TPPA, of course, but I seem to be seeing fairly similar attitudes on the part of government and some in industry/business in both issues.
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Hard News: You down with TPP?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
people buy our milk powder because
they have absolutely no faith in their own country's dairy companies and Western companies generally and New Zealand in particular have a reputation for producing safe, clean, quality product and not playing fast and loose with health, safety and nutritional regulations. But there are plenty both in NZ and elsewhere determined to ruin that reputation in order to make a fast buck.
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This thread may be the least off topic for this.... There's something seriously wrong when the Children's Commissioner needs to say and the Herald needs to quote:
"It's hard to put a financial value on children receiving a Christmas present or seeing their dad."
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Home is where the earth is?
Works for me.
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Hebe,
I think you need to come home for a summer.
No, we just had a summer, and for all my whingeing I actually prefer the winter. One can always put more clothes on....
"Home", heh, a rather troublesome little word.
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No cloudscapes around here, just a typical north China winter hard, blue, utterly frigid sky. The only fluffy white things are the emissions from central heating plants. I do, however, have a pizza monster to offer.
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Hard News: Looking at Leveson, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
There's a hell of a difference between opposing the institution of the monarchy and extending the individual members of the royal family the same basic respect we expect to be treated with ourselves.
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Hard News: Looking at Leveson, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
the British royals for being so fucking precious
Given that this comes so hard on the heels of the Leveson inquiry and the decades of invasions of privacy they've had to suffer at the hands of the British press, I'm not about to go accusing them of being precious unless you can provide evidence that their treatment of the nurse was unreasonable and over the top. I'm not a great fan of the monarchy and I generally avoid news coverage of them, but I haven't seen any headline (about all I read of the royals unless it's about something actually important) suggesting they might have been so. And they're just as deserving of a fair go as anybody else.
