We were listening as we always do, to the dulcet tones of Sean Plunket on Morning report when he previewed a story on clothing manufacturer Davey Hughes of Swazi this morning. BB's son wears a bit of Swazi. Helicopter pilots, hunters, weekend warriors fishermen and farmers and muttonbirders swear by its sturdiness and fit. Hughes is one person we would like to meet one day. He has long long blond locks and a Grizzly Adams beard. He often appears incongruous as he dines with his wife Maggie in some of Wellington's better restaurants or as he pours over papers in the Koru Lounge. He is the thinking women's crumpet.
We digress......
Anyway his firm is a New Zealand success story and he has just lost nearly $2million in contracts he has had with Defence. That's about 15 - 20% percent of his business so its fair to assume that there will be layoffs.
There are trade issues and third party supply agreements here at play.
Anyway Hughes admits that the issue is not a simple one. But he is rocked by the irony that on the eve of the Job Summit the government delivers on one hand while on the other hand it taketh away.
Anyway this case, because it is an iconic company in this part of the world, will undoubtedly be a talking point at the Summit tomorrow.
Posts
8 comments:
The pity of it is that the gore tex kit he makes for the NZDF is superb, no gaurantee that the Chinese will be able to replicate the quality...
Just because a business is based in Levin and owned by Grizzly Adams is no guarantee that it is an efficient and reliable supplier of high quality garments.
New Zealand consumers are not just driven by price, indeed they have a high degree of loyalty to local businesses, and I'm sure the NZDF is no exception. I'll bet that there's more going on here than what was captured in a simple headline on the DomPost.
Excellent watch! Great for an industry that get's totally slagged by fucks like the Twigs and Tweets. Shows the real New Zealand who's getting their food for them!
as was said on the radio this morning- for the cost equivalent of a LAV gearbox, 100 people are out of work in Levin.
There is no "H" in Sean AGAIN BB!
The savings made for the benefit of an Aussie companies bottom line are not matched to the benefits that the taxpayer will now need to provide.
Whats the bet the aussie co doesn't even pay tax in NZ.
This sort of shit sucks.
But isn't it true that none of the services including the police, army, navy, air force can actually purchase anything properly.
and what happened to the odea that prisoners could do this stuff cheap. Still better than sending money to China.
Stop grizzling Grizzly if your products are well made and represent good value get off your arse and market them yourself. It might mean less looking in the mirror or reading articles about yourself but if the gear is good it will sell.
Everybody seems to be ignoring the reported drop in the value of the contract by 1.9million - that says to me that Yakka has all the raincoats it needs in its warehouse. So if they dropped the value by 1.9 million but left the work in Levin - how would Swazi pay their staff?
Post a Comment