Labour’s curse wins again

In June 2015 Labour declared milk prices (for consumers) were a crisis:

Kiwi families are paying over the top prices for their milk and someone is creaming off big profits, says Labour’s Consumer Affairs spokesperson David Shearer. …

“Milk has been an important daily staple for generations of New Zealanders. At a time when child obesity and diabetes are causing major problems in our health system, it seems perverse that Coca-Cola is now more affordable than fresh milk,” David Shearer says.

Incidentally it is not at all perverse that coke may be cheaper than milk. Coke is some syrup added to water. Milk has to be milked from cows, transported, pasteurized etc.

Anyway as always it doesn’t take long for Labour to declare something is a crisis or similar, and the problem goes away.  The Herald reports:

Falling fresh milk prices led the way for grocery prices to go down last month, Statistics New Zealand says.

“Grocery food prices fell 0.8 per cent in October, led by a 5.7 per cent fall in fresh milk prices,” Statistics NZ consumer prices manager Matt Haigh said today.

Seasonally lower prices for fruit and vegetables also influenced the overall drop in prices.

“The average price for 2 litres of blue-top milk was $3.13 in October 2015, the cheapest since January 2008 when it was also $3.13,” Mr Haigh said in a statement.

Maybe one day Labour will learn that in markets prices go up and down, and claiming a temporarily low or high price is a crisis which needs government intervention isn’t the stuff of credible government, but just tiresome hysteria.