Local Focus: Tukituki's biggest issue according to the candidates is health, employment and being like Tuscany

The main candidates for the Tukituki seat in next month's general election have differing views on what the biggest issue facing the electorate is.

In this Local Focus video National Party MP Lawrence Yule says post-Covid unemployment is the biggest issue.

"In Hastings alone there are 800 new people on the Jobseeker benefit in the last three-odd months," he said.

Labour Party candidate and Hawke's Bay District Health Board member Anna Lorck says health "is the biggest issue by far when I go and talk to people on the streets".

"We must look at how we can have greater access to greater affordable healthcare and services," she said.

Green Party candidate Chris Perley says realising Hawke's Bay's economic and social potential is the greatest challenge, because many businesses are chasing a low-wage Hawke's Bay economy.

"Hawke's Bay as a whole could be Tuscany," he said. But he warns that 'industry types' are emulating Nebraska in terms of irrigation, or Bangladesh with low wages.

Named after the river that runs through it, the Tukituki electorate is primarily comprised of the Hastings District.

It follows the Tūtaekurī River to the Kaweka Range, south to Central Hawke's Bay and then inland where it narrowly skirts the towns of Waipukurau and Waipawa before the boundary heads to the coast at Pourerere.

It has a predominantly rural economy, with many of Hastings' workers commuting from the neighbouring electorate of Napier.

Also standing in the Tukituki electorate:
• Jan Daffern for ACT
• Chris Grey for the Outdoors Party
• Nick McMinn-Collard for New Conservatives
• Melanie Petrowski for ONE
• Romana Manning for the Legalise Cannabis party

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