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CAMPAIGN JOURNAL: Could Hemp Ice Cream Help Save New Zealand’s Tailing Economy?
When the country officially entered recession on Thursday, Labor leader Jacinda Ardern was in Palmerston North tasting the non-dairy dessert and inspecting hybrid meat products.
Little was said about the recession.
Mayor Grant Smith welcomed Ardern and Labor finance spokesman Grant Robertson to the Massey University campus, telling the couple that their city was doing well, but more investment would not be bad. .
“Well, the news from ASB is that you’re topping the charts … Don’t let a news story get in the way of a question,” Ardern said.
After inspecting soy beef and a special ultraviolet light recipe that helps strawberries, soybeans, and cannabis increase yields by 10 to 14 percent, a high-tech food lab offered insight deeper part of the promised new economy.
David Unwin / Things / Things
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern samples hemp ice cream while touring a Massey University laboratory.
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It’s generally not advisable for politicians to be caught eating on camera, but hemp ice cream was on the menu and Ardern took a scoop.
“Creamy,” he said.
As there was talk of popped quinoa and carrot powder, an excited crowd gathered outside the lab, phones poised to see the Labor leader.
It was a stark contrast to the week before, when national leader Judith Collins visited the same corner of the Massey University campus to inspect the robots in development. Then there was no crowd.
David Unwin / Stuff
A crowd of enthusiastic Ardern fans were waiting for a selfie at Massey University on Thursday.
While the Labor Party was in town, in part, to demonstrate previously announced funding for the region, in the headlines Thursday was the fall in the country’s gross domestic product: 12.2 percent in the quarter of June.
Ardern, speaking to the press at a construction site that was the campaign’s next stop, said it was just one measure of the economy’s performance.
“It’s not just about what happened during that June quarter in terms of the effect of the lockdown, it’s actually about the rebound … We are seeing a rebound in activity,” he said.
David Unwin / Things / Things
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern inspects popped quinoa at Massey University.
He said a government could not remedy the decline of the economy through the country’s long-standing economic drivers: rising house prices and heavy immigration.
“We can grow the economy through investment in research and development, those areas that are creating high-wage jobs through investment.”
Robertson backed his leader’s assessment: “Today I saw things that are the generator of high-wage jobs, so it has to be a fundamental part of how we rebuild the economy.”
The gulf in the city’s response to Labor and national leaders became more apparent as Ardern walked around the city square later in the day, shouting declarations of love and thanks from onlookers.
Collins, walking to a café a week earlier, drew a sharper response from a woman: “I was hoping it was Jacinda.”
Eager for her own stop at a cafe, Ardern approached Barley, a plant-based venue that had been closed for the afternoon only moments before by its shocked owner.
The doors were opened and Robertson confirmed that the cafe had benefited from some government stimulus spending, though he declined the offer of a plant-based mince and cheesecake, questioning why it would even be called a “mince pie”. .
This innovation was not one that he was willing to back with his wallet.
