The Act New Zealand leader — who is also acting prime minister this week — was in Dunedin yesterday and visited local businesses including the Otago Childcare Centre, Progressive Plastics and Scott Technology.
Speaking to the media after touring the automation and robotics solutions provider’s factory, Mr Seymour said he was “in awe” of what the people at Scott Technology were doing.
“They have robotic knives that can strip a sheep’s carcass in six seconds, and to think that is happening here in Dunedin … what they are doing is absolutely at the forefront of world technology.”
Mr Seymour, who has a degree in electrical engineering, said the company’s digital signal processing involved some of the hardest mathematics you could do.
The integration of abstract mathematical modelling and robotic programming showed “incredible teamwork”.
“To have, at one level, your nerds, if you like, and at another level your tradies working together to create one project … I think that’s very, very cool.”
Comments he had heard during his visit included on the speed at which parts had been able to be ordered and delivered before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Global supply chains had been stretched and interrupted by the pandemic as well as global trade uncertainty, and New Zealand needed more capital equipment, capacity and money being laid down, he said.
Anything that allowed businesses to do that more easily was very important, he said.
Both Scott Technology and Progressive Plastics benefited “substantially” from foreign direct investment — something he believed the country needed to welcome more of.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand announced yesterday the official cash rate (OCR) would remain at 3.25%, marking a pause in a series of six consecutive cuts since August last year.
In a statement, the Reserve Bank said annual consumers’ price inflation would likely increase towards the top of the 1% to 3% target band over mid-2025.
But due to spare productive capacity in the economy and declining domestic inflation pressures headline inflation was expected to remain within this band and return to around 2% by early next year.
The economic outlook remained “highly uncertain”, and further data including on the impacts of tariffs would influence the future path of the OCR, the statement said.
Mr Seymour said concerns about headline inflation were being heard around the world.
“You see the Australians, they cut hard, then they had a rebound, and then they started cutting again.
“In New Zealand, we haven’t had to do that.
“Far better to be falling, pausing and hopefully falling again, than having to go back for a second look, as other countries have had to.”
When asked about the role uncertainty around United States tariffs may have played in the Reserve Bank’s decision, Mr Seymour said he had “no doubt” the bank was looking at international factors.
“I think anyone who’s done even five minutes of economics will know that our trade as a trading nation is critical to the prices we see, and they’ll be sensitive to that.”
