“This is something that’s cost NZ dairy farmers about $60 million in lost sales but the opportunity cost is much higher.
“Being a dairy farmer, one would think Mr Guy would be attuned to the fall in dairy prices and the need to open real markets up.
“Minister Guy not only said that it ‘does not make sense’ to negotiate a free-trade agreement with Russia, the world’s number two dairy importer, but then bizarrely justified this by adding he was focused on the ‘wider geopolitical issues of right now’.
“As dairy farmers check their overdraft, Minister Guy’s words will not comfort them.
“Farmers need to know that while Minister Guy and his National colleagues have ruled a Russian free trade deal out, NZ First hasn’t.
“Minister Guy’s comments were as subtle as a brick through a diplomatic plate glass window.
“He has to recognise that words mean much and what he said in Parliament will be read in Moscow at this most sensitive of times,” Peters said.
