Key outlines what region needs to do

FOCUS: Prime Minister John Key addresses a lunchtime function at the Wairarapa Trading Company restaurant in Masterton yesterday.

Supporting your facilities, better infrastructure and getting "wired up" are the keys to keeping people and businesses in Wairarapa, says Prime Minister John Key.

Mr Key was a guest speaker at a lunchtime function yesterday at the Wairarapa Trading Company restaurant in Kuripuni, organised by social network group 43 Below.

He was speaking to the concept of how to keep skilled people from moving away to urban centres.

Mr Key said the "huge pressure" in Auckland on infrastructure is having a flow-down effect on New Zealand, and it is better to retain people with skills in the towns they live in.

"A hell of a lot of people would love to live here, and not commute into Wellington," he said.

The key to sustaining a workplace in Wairarapa is the internet, he said.

"If you are not technologically wired up, you will never keep jobs here.

"We have got to get as much of New Zealand on fibre as we possibly can.

"The more New Zealand becomes a highly integrated environment, the more we can sell to the rest of the world."

Second to that was supporting the facilities you had, such as hospitals and schools.

Mr Key fielded a question on the 100 per cent pure campaign, which had been attacked following the Fonterra scandal.

The campaign should stay, he said.

"People opposed to it have largely a political barrow they want to push," adding they were taking the 100 per cent pure in a literal sense. "I think we should stick with it."