Rural New Zealand in need of a rebuild

Rural New Zealand is a part of New Zealand society that both big parties pay a lot of lip service to. Labour and National both have rural candidates, and both parties have a storied history. Labour was born in Blackball, a former mining town on the West Coast in the 1800s. While National formed in Wellington in 1936, there are electorates which have been deep blue their inception. But how well do they look after rural communities?

Rural New Zealand is changing. As National found out in 2020, the concept of Labour winning rural seats on occasion is not that far fetched. Labour candidate Jo Luxton rolled the incumbent National candidate in the historic COVID-affected election that year.

The free trade folly

Farmers are realizing that New Zealand on the whole needs a general reset on some matters. After 40 years of neoliberal market reforms, there is now significant evidence that divesting in rural communities does not work. The closure of public services like schools and banks, medical centres and welfare centres – essential services that hold communities together – weakens their foundations. Outsourcing factory/industrial processing jobs – meat works, forestry, manufacturing, dairy and so forth makes residents contemplate moving.

I wonder how much most farmers understand about free trade agreements. Free trade is not necessarily fair trade – where all parties give/take proportionately. It weakens protections on factors such as immigration and enables people from lower income countries to work here. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that many of them come from countries with few or no worker rights, weak law enforcement.

Farmers like free trade deals because it is supposed to mean that the end point customer only pays the up front price. It means no tariffs, other charges or restrictions on availability. It sounds good in theory, but the reality is somewhat different.

Property rights and the environment

The Resource Management Act, which needs rewriting, is a source of frustration for farming communities. It was written to replace about 50 or more pieces of legislation, many of which were obsolete.

But the problem for farmers – as it is just about everybody else – is not the Act. It is the councils and other bodies responsible for its implementation. Just as I have described for urban developments, similar problems exist when large scale rural applications get lodged. Successive amendment Acts have failed to update core parts of the Act, such as duration of consents. I pick this particular example because I am convinced that 35 years is too long for the duration of long-term consents. 20 years would be better, in return for – assuming no major changes in environmental conditions or condition violations happening – it renew on demand.

The environment is changing. When I was a kid I could swim without fear of getting sick in most rivers I visited. The biggest problem was not water quality, but the usual safety matters such as falling in/being swept away. Environment Canterbury wrote the Natural Resource Regional Plan (2002-2011), which included strong provisions for water quality. Due to politics, the plan was replaced almost immediately with a newer plan that lacked those provisions.

Consumers overseas are starting to question the environmental legitimacy of where they get their products from. New Zealanders in contrast seem pretty ho-hum as long as they can afford it. But the growing advocacy for environmentally ethical supply chains is starting to put the heat on New Zealand producers.

Rural communities

I have advocated before for rural communities having good services. What I might not have advocated so well for is better support for rural families, and farmers in particular. Thus I am pleased to see that Rural Support Trust exists, and that farmers are engaging it in dire times. In a country that relies as heavily as New Zealand does on farming and other rural sector jobs, this is vital. New Zealand has one of the higher rates of farming occupational accidents per annum. Improving mental health services and available medical care would go some way towards reducing the statistics.

But, it is time for a rebuild. The time has come to restore the services that 40 years of neoliberal trickle down economics have taken away.

But are our rural communities prepared to vote differently? Because neither National or Labour seem to have any real answers in 2026.