Rex Graham: We need to manage our growth

Rex Graham.

Economic development and growth is one of the principal drivers of regional government to create an environment that our industry can flourish in.

In Heretaunga that is primarily horticulture and this sector is experiencing an economic renaissance. This is mostly due to a rise in commodities prices for the crops that our region is involved in, especially apples, kiwifruit and wine. We seem to be in a prolonged and sustainable growth period. There is an ever increasing demand in the market for our product with the focus now being on Asia not Europe. Apple planting is unprecedented and this is intensified by new technology that has exponentially increased production per hectare.

This is a perfect storm, when excellent growing conditions, great production and a strong market align, that doesn't often come to our growers and our region is revelling in it. Farmers and horticulturists are reinvesting back in to their businesses. They are buying more land, planting new orchards and investing into off-orchard facilities and this is just the beginning. Huge amounts of capital are being, and will continue to be, invested in packing sheds and coolstores as well as axillary cluster industries such as transport, orchard machinery, windmills, picking ladders, etc. But they will only do this if they can manage the seasonal harvest peaks that occur in this industry and this challenge will exacerbate as new plantings come in to production. They need the RSE (Recognised Seasonal Employee) programme to do this.

This is the programme that brings in seasonal workers from the Pacific, Melanesia and Asia. The RSE programme is of course very beneficial for these foreign workers, their families and their communities because most of these people are very poor and come from small villages where there is no work.

The growers need the RSEs to manage the seasonal peaks to build this industry and build our economy and most importantly to build fulltime jobs. The expansion of these industries with the support of offshore casual labour will create more permanent jobs but we need to make sure that whenever possible these permanent jobs go to locals not to other imports.

How do we support this investment and more importantly how do we ensure that everyone in the region benefits from this renaissance, including many of our own people who want and need causal work? Most growers accept that the RSE programme must work in harmony with our community and its aspiration of full employment but we sometimes struggle to get the balance right. We need a credible strategy to manage this and more importantly we need a broker to bring these two sides together. We also need to confront the reality that it has been a long drought for some of our own local people who are out of work and have been so for a long time and they are not work ready. This will require investment in the expertise to resolve and manage this challenge and we need our industry to work with us, to stop relying on central government to do this for us and develop our own solution in Heretaunga that our commercial community understands, believes in and embraces.

I propose a local "marriage broker" who is connected to and trusted by both sides and this could be the iwi as they have very strong existing relationships with the key local growers and understand the situation on the ground. We could have a local identity card called the kahungunu card. The card would look exactly like a driver's licence with the owner's name and picture. Any local could apply for a kahungunu card whether they be Maori, Pacifica or Pakeha and as a card holder they would get preferred status. The card guarantees that the holder is firstly a local, an experienced worker or has completed an accredited training course and has a back-up support base. And this is really important difference, because it gives the employer confidence that the card holder has a support structure that he can turn to if there are any issues that need sorting out. We need to help our industry maintain and grow the RSE scheme but in turn our industry needs to help the community ensure every available person in Heretaunga who wants a job, either permanent of casual, gets one. There is going to be a lot of permanent jobs created in Heretaunga over the next few years and we need to ensure that our local people are ready to take them.

- Rex Graham is a Hawke's Bay regional councillor.

- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz