Finance Minister Bill English says Kiwis have got used to the effect of a strong dollar after several years of high exchange rates.
His comments come as concern grows over a crisis in the manufacturing industry caused by dwindling returns for exported goods.
English, who is in Hamburg, Germany, a major port of entry for New Zealand goods, told ONE News Europe Correspondent Garth Bray that the dollar has been trading at more than 80 cents for four to five years and that "many of our businesses have adapted to it pretty well".
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English also criticised the opposition, saying "they've been against mining, oil and gas, they're against the intensification of agriculture."
"The Government is very actively looking to grow our revenue," he said.
" The opposition parties are trying to stop all that. They're arguing for doing nothing and putting up these snake-oil ideas about printing money to pretend we're all wealthy."
The Green Party has called for the Reserve Bank to inject more cash into the economy to reduce the value of the dollar but the move has been rejected by Prime Minister John Key.
"Is there a crisis in New Zealand? Well we could talk ourselves into a crisis, but I'm not convinced there is one," he said yesterday.
"If printing money is the way to go, why don't we just print lots of money and we will have a great Christmas!"
Statistics New Zealand figures provided by the Green Party show around 40,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector since 2008.
However Key said Green Party data was "wrong", and that they had "come up with a whole lot of data that we can't stack up".
However, unions are pressing for action and are hoping the Government will take steps to offer more support for the manufacturing industry after a crisis summit this week.
Call for 'more regional development support'
The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), has organised Friday's meeting of unions and opposition MPs in response to the recent loss of jobs in the sector.
"We've had in our union more than 70 separate companies announce redundancies since February, that's two a week on average," EPMU National Secretary Bill Newson.
Companies such as the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, Solid Energy, Norske Skog, Nuplex and KiwiRail have announced mass redundancies in recent months.
Peter Conway from the Council of Trade Unions, who will be part of the panel on Friday, told TV ONE's Breakfast 40,000 jobs have been lost in the sector in the last five years and the Government needs to offer more support.
"One example is Government procurement, could we have, as they do in Australia, stronger local industry participation agreements that are written into the tender documents," he said.
"You can't rescue every business that's failing but you could get a lot more regional development support, you could work with local employers when a business is facing a crisis, you could look at re-instituting the nine day fortnight job support scheme, you could look at bridging finance if it's temporary things that's being faced."
However some employers say that talk of a crisis is overstating the situation.
"Business is tough out there, but the good guys with good products are doing ok," managing director of Real Steel Luke Mathieson told ONE News.
In 2009 the Government called its own job summit at the peak of the global financial crisis, but Prime Minister John Key will not be attending this week's discussions.
The meeting on Friday will be held at the EPMU's Auckland office.
A political panel will feature Green Party co-leader Russel Norman, Labour's David Parker and New Zealand First's Winston Peters.
On a business panel will be Peter Conway from the CTU, technology entrepreneur Selwyn Pellett and John Walley from the Manufacturers and Exporters Association.