Central Hawke's Bay ahead of other regions in redeployment

Finance Minister Grant Robertson, left, braved a rainy CHB to visit the region's worker redeployment programme.

Last week Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Labour candidate for Wairarapa Kieran McAnulty visited Waipukurau to check out the positive impact the Mayor's Taskforce for Jobs and the Worker Redeployment programmes are having on local employment.

Both employment programmes, which were launched earlier this year with the support of government agencies post Covid-19, are now well under way.

Deputy mayor Kelly Annand and council's chief executive Monique Davidson met with Robertson and McAnulty to first visit some of the district's redeployed workers, who are focusing on vegetation management.

Robertson said Central Hawke's Bay was well ahead of other regions in actioning the redeployment programmes, saying "This is a council that I think has the right focus, and good relationships with its contractors which speeds up the process of getting these initiatives up and running.

"These smaller communities tend to gather around their people a bit more, and more quickly, than larger centres. This is a joint initiative between central government, local government and contractors and it's working well.

"Seeing these results today, it's fantastic. Seeing people getting skills that are going to be useful to them throughout their whole lives and allow them to get into work. A couple of the people who would normally be here have actually gone off to job interviews today ... it's great.

"The need existed anyway, some of these people were unemployed before Covid-19, but now there are more people to cater for and we are just delighted to see so many taking advantage of these schemes."

The group also visited CHB's mobile employment hub, as part of the Mayor's Taskforce for Jobs programme.

"It was fantastic to showcase to Minister Robertson the two initiatives which are already making a real difference," said deputy mayor Annand.

"As we continue into the recovery phase of Covid-19 and drought, supporting Central Hawke's Bay's workforce is of the utmost priority, to ensure we all come through this unprecedented time together."

Speaking in Dannevirke later that afternoon, Robertson said the Government had a three-stage plan - respond, recover and rebuild - which started with the lockdown, the wage subsidy scheme and contracting with airlines to keep flying imports and exports flowing.

He outlined measures to ensure recovery, providing loans for small businesses, training schemes for the jobless, maintaining trading relationships with key partners like the UK, building infrastructure, housing and looking after the environment with the Jobs For Nature scheme employing 11,000 job seekers.

"It is all about future proofing the economy," he said.

When asked whether the cities would be allowed to grow at the expense of the regions he pointed to the Government's Provincial Growth Fund which is pumping investment into businesses and jobs.

He said he had learnt a lot about regional development in the last three years and was convinced it worked better in partnership with locals at the ground level.