‘Scared’ Of Free Trade

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30759, 25 May 1965, Page 1

‘Scared’ Of Free Trade

(N Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 24.

New Zealand manufacturers probably officially opposed a free trade area between Australia and New Zealand to put themselves in a stronger bargaining position with the New Zealand Government, Mr J. P. Young, an Australian business consultant, said today.

“1 am sure progressive and enlightened companies endorse the principle that the two nations’ destinies are inevitably interlocked,” he said. “But they are not certain what the New Zealand Government has in mind.” Mr Young said many people to whom he had spoken were “scared stiff” of the consequences of such an arrangement.

“They seem to look on Australia as a great ogre waiting

to swamp them with Australian manufactures and produce the moment the floodgates are opened,” he said. “There will, of course, be a number of sensitive areas. “A free trade situation cannot be expected to develop straight away over the whole range of Australian and New Zealand products. “The Australian dairy farmers, for instance, could not withstand the challenge of New Zealand competition at this stage, and there will be areas in which New Zealand producers will not be able to withstand the challenge of Australian competition.” Mr Young said in the beginning there might have to be a selective arrangement, with union applying thereafter to a constantly widening range of products. “It will be surprising what time will achieve once a start has been made,” he said. “I am. certain that within a comparatively short span of years you will find Australia, instead of curtailing imports of New Zealand foodstuffs, will be actively seeking them,” said Mr Young. At the Wellington export seminar sponsored by the Manufacturers’ Federation today its vice-president, Mr H. W. Reed, reiterated the federation’s opposition to the proposed trans-Tasman free trade area at present.

Mr Reed said in 10 years New Zealand exports to Australia increased from £6 million to £l5 million. Manufacturers contributed nearly 70 per cent of this total. “New Zealand manufacturers want to keep on increasing their exports to Australia, but the federation cannot see how the arrangements now under discussion will help,” said Mr Reed. “No clear advantages for our manufacturers have been disclosed at any stage,” said Mr Reed. There was a need for more talking between the manufacturers and the Government.

“I think it is time Australia and New Zealand sold together instead of competing for markets and cutting prices on each other.

“Time is running out for both countries,” said Mr Reed.

“If they don’t get out and sell aggressively now, in eight years they will have lost their place in the sun,” he said.