Whether it was a matter of the timing (1:30 pm on a glorious spring Friday) or a symptom of a general air of malaise many voters have been reporting, the audience for the Southland electorate candidates’ discussion panel in Alexandra only numbered about 30.

Central Otago District mayor Tim Cadogan chaired the event run by Business South, keeping the audience amused and trying to keep the candidates to their time limits while answering questions.

The format was an opening address from candidates, followed by questions provided earlier by those who had registered to attend, interspersed with some quickfire “Yes or No” inquiries.

The candidates attending were, in order of their introductions: Dave Kennedy of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand; Todd Stephenson of ACT New Zealand; Dr. Simon McCallum of the New Zealand Labour Party; and Joseph Mooney of the New Zealand National Party; who is the sitting member of Parliament for Southland. Tim said Te Pati Maori had been invited but did not respond.

The opening question was ‘What would your party do if newly elected in the first 100 days for small and medium businesses (SMEs)?'

First 100 days

Todd said ACT would reduce government spending of $16 billion within two years, and return the number of Wellington bureaucrats to 2017 levels. 

“There will be less bureaucrats coming up with crazy things to impose more regulations on businesses.”

ACT would also create a new Minister of Regulation. Todd admitted that sounded a little strange, no doubt given his previous statements, but said the minister would be as powerful as the finance minister and be able to look across the government and veto any proposal without a cost benefit analysis and a regulatory impact assessment.

Some of those things would have to be negotiated, he said.

Simon said Labour was making a free trade agreement (FTA) with India a priority, so New Zealand had more options than just China.

“We have also announced a $100M investment into agritech, because we believe that a large amount of our economy needs to focus on bringing in technology into the agricultural industry, get better data, have more sustainability agriculture, and be able to show that niche quality - show that New Zealand is the best in the world at creating sustainable goods, and then we can use that as leverage to get more money for the work we do.”

Labour was also looking at setting up centres of digital excellence, for example in Dunedin, to support the growth of small industries through a better technical infrastructure.

Joseph said National had earlier identified an FTA with India as a priority, but the single biggest issue for SMEs and everyone in New Zealand was reducing inflation.

He had been a small business owner himself, he said, and National would be “making things easier for SMEs”. 

“We will be lowering the tax costs and compliance for small businesses, we will be reducing the red tape,” he said. Addressing farming policy, he said for any new regulation put forward by central or local government, they would need to remove another two.

“The idea is not to have less regulation for the sake of it, but to have smarter, better-integrated regulation, focused on outcomes not just creating regulation just for the sake of it.”

Dave said it would be difficult to state what the Green Party would do in its first 100 days as it would depend on the number of MPs it had to influence those they shared power with. 

“We believe that too many communities are dependent on large national or overseas businesses that shift the profits out of the communities that generate them. The Green Party wants to work directly with communities to remove barriers to local businesses, and especially to support sustainable local industries.”

Joseph (National) and Todd (ACT) said their parties would not proceed with the Lake Onslow hydro-pumped power scheme, one of the main options put forward by the NZ Battery Project.

Dave said that rather than investing in big costly infrastructure projects, the Green Party thought it better to invest in local resilience. Simon said Labour would happily investigate the best options, but his personal opinion was that the country was not yet at the stage to commit.

Airport proposal for Tarras

The quick fire questions did not get the yes or no responses asked for. The first of these concerned the controversial proposal by Christchurch International Airport Ltd to build an airport at Tarras, an issue that has divided the Tarras community and which would have impacts throughout Central Otago.

“This is what politicians hate, yes or no,” Tim said. 

Joseph declined a yes or no on the issue, saying there was a process that would have to be gone through with the community, “and it would be inappropriate for me to jump in and take a position on it now”.

Dave gave a firm no: “We already can’t deal with the people coming in at the moment,” he said.

Todd did not have a yes or no answer either, but said Act did not see it as a central government issue.

Simon was also not prepared to commit the Labour Party to an opinion on the issue.

Check out the Elections tab on our News page for party and candidate answers to The Central App’s own questions, and to follow news about the election and where and how to vote.