There were plenty of questions for Central Otago and Waitaki MP’s Joseph Mooney and Miles Anderson in Alexandra yesterday, especially after the Budget 2025 announcement.

The pair were invited to speak at a midday event hosted by Elevate Central, where they talked about how the region was driving the current recovery of the New Zealand economy.

Affordable housing was the first question tackled, and Joseph spoke about the 250,000 new building products that were about to be certified in New Zealand for the construction market.

Miles added the fast-track model for housing developments would make the whole process quicker and cheaper.

He said some people had been waiting nine years to get applications through council - there were local developers in the business meeting who resonated with what he was saying.

Joseph said with big changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) due to take place in the next six months, there was also a lot opening up about what property owners could do on their own land.

Advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) was discussed at the meeting, and how it was starting to infiltrate positively across many industries, including agriculture.

The MPs said that regulation was tricky because it could also slow AI down, and it was better that companies worked with communities to educate them about it.

The event attracted a wide cross section of the community, including retired farmers, elected members, council staff and business owners.

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