Vote 2020: Taranaki King Country will benefit from National leadership

National MP for Taranaki King Country Barbara Kuriger. Photo / Supplied

Since its establishment as an electorate in 1996, the Taranaki King Country has been held by the National Party, and the electorate's current National MP Barbara Kuriger said it is her party that has gotten the best for the region, which is why it has such strong support.

It was first held by former Prime Minister Jim Bolger in 1996, before Shane Ardern held the electorate for five terms before retiring in 2014, in which Kuriger won the electorate by a landslide after Ardern's retirement.

A dairy farmer before entering Parliament in 2014, Barbara was the inaugural 2012 Dairy Woman of the Year and has been a member of the Boards of DairyNZ, Primary ITO, Taratahi, Dairy Women's Network and NZ Young Farmers. In 2014 she became a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.

In 2018, Kuriger was elected the senior whip for the National caucus. She is also currently National's spokesperson for rural communities, food safety, women and associate agriculture. She is also chair of Parliament's primary production select committee.

Kuriger is up against Christopher Grey for the NZ Outdoors Party, Brent Miles for Act, Angela Roberts for the Labour Party and Lee Anne Smith for the New Conservative Party.

Kuriger said one of the key issues she was hearing from her electorate was the water regulations on farmers.

"I am hearing a lot about the water regulations and how they are far too harsh on farmers, so we would be looking more at working by catchment and by region, working with the farmers rather than against them," Kuriger said.

She said rebuilding the economy after Covid-19 is the major issue for all parties in the elections, and said National wanted to stimulate the economy.

"Some small businesses are faring well in the electorate, others are not. If they are in the agricultural sector it isn't as bad as others. If you have stores that are helping farmers then that is definitely faring better than the hospitality sector.

"If you look at Waitomo, they have been hit the hardest with the lack of international tourism now in our country.

"I also have a focus on rural health and getting a set of data points so we can actually measure how we can get better primary health in our rural electorates, if you look at our primary schools we have a great amount of those spread out but not so much on health."

She supported National MPs in Hamilton who supported a medical school at the Waikato University which would have a focus on rural health.