Act's David Seymour tells Dannevirke party will stop regulations hampering rural communities

dvnseymour2 About 25 people attended the public meeting last week. Photo/Leanne Warr

"What we're hearing is that rural New Zealand is slow to anger, but when they get there, they're full-bore," David Seymour told Dannevirke residents.

The Act party leader was speaking at a public meeting at the Dannevirke Golf Club on Thursday.

About 25 people came to the meeting, which is part of Seymour's honest conversations tour, with 45 meetings being held over the country.

With progress, many rural communities were seeing a drop, or a closing down of services, such as banking, in favour of internet banking. Or in postal services.

"You're not going to stop technological advancement," Seymour said.

"The truth is, just as cheques were an innovation on carrying around coins, internet banking is going to be a reality."

Seymour said no honest political party would suggest it could stop the march of progress, but what Act could do for places like Dannevirke was something about the regulations that put on costs that made things such as better internet unviable.

"If you look at buildings that are being hollowed out because of earthquake regulations.

"That's just nuts. We're the only party that opposed those regulations."

Seymour said people couldn't afford to occupy those buildings or renovate the buildings to comply with those regulations, but because they were heritage buildings, they couldn't destroy them either.

He said there were so many things people didn't do because of regulations, such as long-term regulations like the Resource Management Act.

"We need to make it easier for people to do things.

"We need confidence in the rural sector because ultimately it's that production that is driving much of the income and attracting people to be there."

He said the Government subsidising people to plant trees was also "just nuts".

"If a property owner wants to plant trees on their property, that's their choice.

"This is having a massive effect on rural communities, because you can't eat trees."

Regulations around biodiversity and freshwater created uncertainty and stopped people from investing.

"Places in rural New Zealand have a major advantage.

"They've got more space, space is cheaper, but if the regulations stop redevelopment, then you lose the advantage."

When asked about housing Seymour said that it was another issue that was hampered.

"The overall price of housing is set by supply and demand.

"So our view is you make it easier to build housing, drive the price down, you don't need as much housing as you used to need.

"The most ineffective way to supply housing is to have the Government do it.

"You look at the different projects and how badly they've done with KiwiBuild.

"Our view is that what makes it harder to live in places like Dannevirke is there's so much regulation, so much cost, that you can't develop property, you can't be cost-competitive.

"There's so much land here. Land's affordable, so you should have lots of affordable housing and that would be one of the main drivers for people to be here."

A question was asked in relation to an issue with gangs in Dannevirke. One person said that people were not reporting issues for fear of reprisals.

Seymour said Act had released its law and order policy which included strategies to deal with the problem of gangs.

For instance, a gang injunction order where police could apply to the court for a "good behaviour contract".

He said they needed to also use smart tools to stop people joining the gangs.

There was also electronic income management where those with a known gang association would be given a card that monitored their spending, restricting spending on certain things and allowing them to get counselling.

"We need to send a message through Government that New Zealand people do not endorse the gang lifestyle."