Kate Green of RNZ
Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay have three new National MPs after the previously Labour-held seats turned blue in the election.
But with the region still knee-deep in the recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle, there is pressure on the new MPs to get it right.
Catherine Wedd in Tukituki, Katie Nimon in Napier and Dana Kirkpatrick on the East Coast won their seats by a collective margin of more than 20,000 votes.
Growers are hoping a change in leadership will bring fresh eyes to the sector’s problems.
Bryden Nisbet, president of the Hawke’s Bay Fruitgrowers’ Association, said support had been slow off the mark, and the two loan schemes put in place by the Labour government weren’t working for everyone.
The Loan Guarantee Scheme came with standard interest rates, which some growers just couldn’t afford.
And since interest-free loans were only available to the worst-hit growers whom banks considered too risky to lend to, some were stuck in the middle ground - hit badly enough to be unable to afford interest payments, but not badly enough to qualify for the interest-free scheme.
“There’s probably an expectation that National will review what’s been offered in the cyclone recovery - they’ll have a good close look at it and see whether it is fit for purpose,” Nisbet said.
Wedd told RNZ’s Morning Report that with an estimated $3.5 billion worth of damage done to the horticulture sector, she was keen to throw her support behind its recovery.
“They were already suffering under a Labour government, with a lot of regulation, red tape, bureaucracy,” Wedd said.
“These are areas that we’re going to focus on, making sure that it’s easier for our growers to grow, our farmers to farm, and our primary industries to actually do well.”
Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated chairman Bayden Barber said money for silt removal was desperately needed.
Government top-ups kept running out, and there was still a huge amount of silt keeping whānau from their homes.
He said in the lead-up to Christmas, there were still plenty of displaced families to support.
He also hoped the new government would support the iwi in its plan to improve conditions for its people in areas like health, education and housing - all areas for which the iwi had an action plan for improvement, which needed government support to see it through.
In the small town of Wairoa, in the north of the Napier electorate, Mayor Craig Little said getting people back into their homes was his biggest priority.
He said the Labour government had shown good support, but the town needed further financial assistance to get a large number of cyclone-damaged homes repaired and liveable again.
He said only three out of 130 displaced families were back in their homes, and many were under-insured, or uninsured entirely.
“We need about $6 million,” he said - on top of the $3m already given to them by the former Labour government, through Te Puni Kōkiri.
Napier’s new MP Katie Nimon told RNZ’s Morning Report when it came to the recovery, National’s policies had been formed around what the candidates had heard on the ground.
“Catherine, Dana and I have been - we effectively threw ourselves into our communities, after the cyclone, we were there,” she said.
“But we were feeding that back to the party the whole way along.”
The East Coast’s Dana Kirkpatrick told RNZ’s Morning Report they intended to be a force to be reckoned with.
“I think without a doubt the three of us will work really well together, and we’ll be a force for the East Coast.”
- RNZ