Helen White – MP for Mt Albert
New Zealand is a fertile nation of productive farms and abundant exports, sending much of what it produces offshore. We market ourselves as an agricultural superpower, feeding the world. We are rightly proud of our productivity, yet increasingly, many New Zealanders find themselves in supermarkets wondering why they can't afford the very products we produce so efficiently.
That contradiction is becoming harder to ignore as more working families turn to food banks under the pressure of rising living costs. Organisations such as Auckland City Mission and the Salvation Army report sharply increased demand for food support, including from people in full-time work. Food banks, once associated mainly with unemployment, are increasingly supporting working New Zealanders struggling to keep up with rent, groceries, power, and fuel.
I recently chose to comment on this situation by highlighting the price disparity between locally produced butter and an imported American product through a post on my social channels. The comments were energetic, to say the least, and columnist Thomas Coughlan responded by comparing me, rather extravagantly, but perhaps in keeping with the mood of some of the commentators, to Kim Jong Un. Apparently, observing that imported American butter was available more cheaply at Pak n’Save, than New Zealand made butter was evidence of latent authoritarianism.
But I had not proposed export bans, price controls, or any command-and-control intervention. Nor had I become involved in strategic purges, assassination of my half-brother, or the relentless pursuit of nuclear legitimacy. I had simply asked whether our economic settings were actually serving the people who live here.
It is remarkable how energetically even modest questioning of market-led outcomes is attacked as ideological heresy and condemned as naive. Of course, the counter argument is familiar. High dairy prices are good for exporters, export revenue underpins our economy. Dairy remains one of New Zealand's key industries. No serious person disputes any of these points.
But it does not follow that domestic food affordability is, therefore, an illegitimate political concern. Nor does it mean New Zealand households should simply accept global commodity pricing determining the cost of essentials on local supermarket shelves.
In the past 3 months, mainstream media outlets have published a number of articles examining soaring prices for butter, milk, cheese, and meat because this reflects a genuine public anxiety. A particularly illuminating RNZ piece highlighted the increasingly strange reality of imported food sometimes being cheaper than local produce in New Zealand supermarkets and offered an explanation of the economic reality that had precipitated my recent experience. The example I used that had sparked the debate was simple enough. Imported American butter retailing for $6.99 while local alternatives sat above $8.00. The article, quoting a number of economists, explained that New Zealand exports much of its premium production overseas because international markets pay more and local consumers are therefore exposed to these same export driven prices.
In economic terms. This is rational. In social terms, however, it raises uncomfortable questions. Food security is often discussed as though it applies only in wars or climate disasters, but affordability is part of food security too. If households cannot consistently afford basic staples because prices are pegged to volatile global markets, then the system is not functioning entirely in the public interest.
New Zealand is particularly exposed because we have embraced an intensely export oriented agricultural model. Roughly 95% of our dairy production leaves the country. That generates enormous national wealth but it also ties domestic prices to international demand cycles over which local consumers have no control. When butter prices spike offshore, families across the country feel it at the checkout.
So perhaps we should be asking what obligations such an effective food producing nation owes its own citizens. This is not an argument against trade, nor against farmers earning strong international returns. Producers are not villains in this story. They are responding rationally to incentives created by global markets and domestic policy settings.
But mature economies recognise that markets alone are not sufficient to guarantee social resilience. We intervene in housing, energy, banking, and healthcare because unfettered market outcomes can produce instability and exclusion.
Food, arguably the most basic necessity of all, deserves at least the same seriousness. What concerns many New Zealanders is not simply the price of butter. It is a growing sense that our country's economic success is becoming detached from the lived experience of its people. We are told record export earnings are good news for while more families quietly substitute butter for margarine, skip fresh produce entirely or rely on food banks.
Mr. Coughlan's energies, therefore, might be better directed not toward trying to sideline opposition politicians asking awkward questions, but toward helping the increasing number of New Zealanders understand why, in one of the world's great food producing nations, a decent weekly shop feels increasingly out of reach.
www.labour.org.nz/our-team/helen-white
