National Party leader Simon Bridges speaks at a public meeting Napier Sailing Club. Photo / Warren Buckland
National Party leader Simon Bridges speaks at a public meeting Napier Sailing Club. Photo / Warren Buckland
About 120 people turned out to the Napier Sailing Club yesterday afternoon to hear from and question National Party leader Simon Bridges who was in town as part of a "Connecting With Communities Roadshow" around the country.
Calling into Napier after having held a meeting in Gisborne in the morning,he said there were four main issues regarding the coalition Government he felt needed addressing - business confidence in the economy, the cost of its plans, its lack of ability to deliver the big programmes it had promised and the softening of approach to law and order and social welfare.
The direction of his address, however, was guided more by the questions he fielded from the audience, mostly comprising an older demographic of National Party supporters.
A note of party faithful concern was sounded by Rex McIntyre, from Nuhaka, who said he was disgusted at how the National Party had run the last two elections, in terms of the late selection of candidates to run.
"I have worked hard as a National Party member for a long time ... we were short-noticed on the candidates chosen. There was not enough time for them to get known through the electorate. Are you prepared to change the system?" he asked.
Bridges said National held every seat outside the big cities, apart from Palmerston North and Napier.
"It's a gruelling thing for an isolated candidate to have a long run rather than a short period where they can go for it with gusto, but I take on board what you are saying," he responded.
He said that if he were Prime Minister he would invest more in infrastructure, particularly roads.
"You could do something significant between Gisborne and Napier if the money was there ... Shane Jones has $3 billion and he will sprinkle a bit around but you will not get so much here - he might put a bit into rail and forestry but none of it matters if you do not have good roads. If you have good roads all the rest follows."
He was also asked his thoughts on water, in light of local concerns about companies taking, bottling and exporting water.
"Our position was everyone owns the water or no-one owns it - as soon as you try to do something around ownership of water the iwi will come calling, it will go to the Supreme Court and the Government will probably not win," he said.
Asked if he would consider sponsoring a bill to change the system to allow governments to have four-year terms, he said this was something other politicians, such as Tukituki MP Lawrence Yule, had been talking about and he was not opposed to it.
"With four years we would have three years to get on with doing a really good job and not be worried about politics and then the one election year, but I don't think it would change things that much."
He got cheers for his suggestion that the MMP system needed reform, something that had been brought up at every meeting he had attended, he said.
Set to speak in Waipawa last night, his Hawke's Bay section of the tour would end this morning at the Hastings Baptist Church.
