THE GOODEndace brings manufacturing back to NZTechnology company Endace has gone against the grain, choosing to move its $5 million manufacturing business out of Asia and back to New Zealand.At a time when many New Zealand businesses are choosing to outso
THE GOOD
Endace brings manufacturing back to NZ
Technology company Endace has gone against the grain, choosing to move its $5 million manufacturing business out of Asia and back to New Zealand.
At a time when many New Zealand businesses are choosing to outsource much or all of their manufacturing overseas, this is a welcome reversal.
Endace founder and chairman Ian Graham said the move to manufacture in New Zealand made good commercial sense, following a thorough investigation of options throughout the Asia Pacific region.
“Bringing our manufacturing to New Zealand means that it’s closer to our Auckland headquarters and our Hamilton product development hub.
“For us, this means better quality control, greater production flexibility and vastly improved communications. We’re delighted to be manufacturing here and to help prove that New Zealand can be a competitive place to build high-tech products.”
The “right” type of jobs
The manufacturing jobs will add to the jobs already created by the company last year when it expanded its Hamilton research and development centre from 59 to 90 staff.
These sorts of high-skill, high-wage jobs are the ones New Zealand needs for the economy to grow and average incomes to rise.
New Zealand will never be able to undercut poorer countries in terms of labour costs so we have to beat them on productivity.
It’s been said that the decline of New Zealand’s manufacturing sector is not a problem as long as the research and development stays here.
But Endace has shown that it is possible to do both, particular when your product is a highly technical one that requires advanced skill to produce.
THE BAD
Liquor laws an attack on small businesses
The government’s proposed liquor law reforms are a thinly veiled attack on the small-time entrepreneurs who risk their livelihoods trying to provide a service people value by selling alcohol.
You’d think, by the way the media has portrayed them recently, that small liquor store owners are to blame for all of society’s problems, not to mention swine flu.
But, as the saying goes, it takes two to tango, or in this case purchase alcoholic beverages.
Focusing on the supply side of the equation, by enabling local busybodies to get rules enforced restricting where alcohol outlets can be located, is incredibly myopic.
Just like any other government policy that places artificial barriers to entry into a market, this intervention will benefit existing players while making it more difficult and expensive for potential competitors to set up.
Supermarkets and large alcohol stores will be licking their chops at the thought of reduced competition and an increased number of customers coming their way.
Whose community is it anyway?
In recent weeks do-gooders in a number of locations, particularly in south Auckland, have marched and waved placards declaring their communities don’t want liquor stores.
This is manifestly false because if their “communities” didn’t want liquor stores these stores would go out of business rapidly due to lack of patronage.
Clearly there are plenty of people in their communities who do want liquor stores, as evidenced by their continuing proliferation in many suburbs.
However, this doesn’t stop these self-appointed voices of the community using the royal ‘we’ when the personal pronoun they should be using is ‘I’.
What they really want to do is control other people: how they think, how they behave, where they go and whom they associate with.
It’s the ultimate puritanical instinct: “I don’t approve of something therefore other people shouldn’t do it.”
Forcing people to go outside the “community” to purchase booze won’t change the underlying social factors behind the problems in places like south Auckland that alcohol is being used as a convenient scapegoat for.
THE UGLY
Hubbard’s missing money
It’s the news Allan Hubbard supporters and investors didn’t want to hear.
About 300 investors in Hubbard Management Funds (HMF) have been told by statutory managers that the reported value of their investments at March 31 was overstated by at least 25%.
“The reason for this is that some of those statements included investments and cash balances, which did not exist,” statutory managers Richard Simpson and Trevor Thornton of Grant Thornton said.
They said there are likely to have been further losses since then due to market weaknesses over that period and they also warned that investors in another company operated by Mr Hubbard, Aorangi Securities, may suffer a loss in their investments.
The story drew a flurry of comments on the NBR site, some supportive of Mr Hubbard and others scathing.
David Hillary wrote, “The apparent false accounting as at 31 March 2010 for HFM sure doesn't reflect well on Mr Hubbard's integrity. Reporting of cash and other assets that don't exist is rather hard to put an honest spin on.”
Commenter Custard admitted to being “baffled” by the number of comments supporting Mr Hubbard.
“For the life of me I can't understand the continued support that AH is receiving from some on this and other boards - is everyone reading the same article above thoroughly and grasping its implications?”
Supporters left looking silly
Whichever way the outcome of the statutory management process went, it was inevitable one group would be left red-faced.
The only question was whether it would be the government and the Securities Commission who decided on statutory management or the zealous supporters of Mr Hubbard who claimed he had done nothing wrong and it was all an injustice.
At the moment it’s looking like the Timaru crowd will come out on the wrong side of this in more ways than one, losing money while looking like credulous fools.
It’s one thing if a bunch of Rich Listers throw money at a speculative venture and lose out but many of these investors are incredibly unsophisticated and have an almost religious faith in Mr Hubbard.
The likes of Mark Hotchin and Rod Petricevic are now seen as social pariahs but it’s hard to see a VW-driving octogenarian on dialysis receiving the same outpouring of hatred, regardless of whether any wrongdoing is found.
