Honeymoon ‘is over’

Press, 9 October 1987, Page 29

Honeymoon ‘is over’

North Otago farmers have demanded that the Government takes action now to get the value of the New Zealand dollar down, lower interest rates and lower inflation. Mr Keith Hanning, President of North Otago Federated Farmers, says the three-year honeymoon of the Government is over. In warning the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas,

that promises were no longer sufficient, Mr Hanning said if an airline timetable was run with the same delays on delivery as Mr Douglas’s finance policy, the airline would have disappeared years ago.

Mr Hanning said he was disturbed to hear that some banks were charging 27 to 35 per cent penalty interest rates to people who were already on their knees.

Although some sections of the farming industry could protect themselves to some degree by forward exchange trading, farmers lost overall. Mr Hanning gave as an example the 40 per cent improvement in meat prices in the United States caused by the high New Zealand dollar — farmers, however, were getting only a 7 per cent improvement.