Winston Peters: Rescuing the regions

MP Winston Peters.

Eight years under the Key government and provincial New Zealand is still being left to battle on to keep their regional economies alive.

In the last 10 years, 13 out of 16 regions lost between 10 and 20 per cent of their population. Experts tell us it is not going to get better any time soon.

Massey University professor and demographer Paul Spoonley estimated that Auckland would swallow up 60 per cent of the country's growth over the next 20 years.

He said the East Coast of the North Island, the West Coast and Northland were looking at a dismal future.

Economist Shamubeel Eaqub made similarly disquieting comments, saying the lights should be switched off in what he called zombie towns.

The National government has no great plan to arrest the decline. Why would they?

Mr Key and his cohorts are, after all, neo-liberals who believe in keeping their hands off and letting the market run as it will.

If the regions are to fight back while National occupies the Beehive, they will have to do it more or less alone.

Professor Spoonley confirmed this when he said provinces would have to adapt or die.

Yet to breathe real life into provinces, it is crucially important central government plays its part. New Zealand First realises this fact.

Last week we unveiled our new policy to shift government departments out of the concrete jungles of the major cities and to put them into the provinces.

Why should the Department of Conservation have its main base in Wellington?

With the advance of new technology the Education Department, IRD, the Ministry for Primary Industries, Land Information and others could easily be relocated to provincial centres.

It will work both ways. The workers will be spared long commutes to work and will find accommodation and housing far cheaper in the provinces.

The rural areas will be boosted with people in well-paid jobs contributing to the local economy; shops will be busier.

Last year Norway was named the most prosperous country in the world for the seventh year running.

They know something New Zealand has forgotten - that if their country hopes to prosper in the future, then the provincial areas must be strong.

With this in mind, the Norwegian government invests heavily in the regions so that profitable new businesses can grow and places far from the capital can still be able to offer residents and immigrants good jobs, while companies can access a skilled labour force.

This is totally at variance to the policies and thinking of the mediocre, lame duck government we have running New Zealand at the moment.

Fixated with short-term gain, John Key and his government are leaving the provinces to wither away.