Now is Not the Time to Bottle the Wine Industry

new-zealand-first-party

Mon Jan 19 2015 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

Now is Not the Time to Bottle the Wine Industry

Monday, 19 January 2015, 4:56 pm
Press Release: New Zealand First Party

A new $3 million charge winegrowers are likely to face smacks of government greed, says New Zealand First.

“Making winegrowers pay for biosecurity and food safety admin costs is unfair and unjustifiable, particularly given the industry contributes $200 million a year in excise tax alone,” says Primary Industries Spokesperson Richard Prosser. “On top of that, they pay GST, and if there’s anything left as a profit, the poor winegrower gets to pay company tax and income tax as well.

“The wine industry generates about one-and-a-half billion dollars a year in export earnings and employs thousands of New Zealanders in what is a very green and high-tech industry.

“We should be encouraging growth and investment in this valuable sector, not grinding it down with punitive charges,” says Mr Prosser, a winemaker and viticulturist by trade.

“In the eight years since my last vintage, returns to the economy from the wine industry have trebled,” he says. “Now the Government wants to squeeze even more out of them, to pay for the administration of biosecurity and food safety – the greatest risk to both of which, it could be argued, is this Government’s own under-resourcing and lack of proper priorities. It’s a grasping mentality and frankly it’s not just impossible to justify, it’s plain mean.”

“How many times over must the wine industry pay for being essentially told what to do?”

ENDS

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