The Muster- Rob Scott: Funding For The South Is Required

Southland District Mayor Rob Scott wants the government to release more funding for the south as the clean up continues after the recent wind events.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Thanks to the South and Rural Support Trust, we're catching
up with people involved in the rural industries down here
in the South. Of course, this is an association with
Community Trusts South. This afternoon it is South and District
Mayor Ribe Scott as we look at the past three
weeks from our council perspective and trying to plan ahead
and what we can learn from the past three weeks. Rob,

(00:32):
good afternoon, thanks for joining us once again.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Good afternoony. There you go.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, pretty good, look at three weeks sign over, three
weeks now from the big event. And it's not a
word that you like to use, but learnings could have
been the key for a lot of things I suppose.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, well it's a bit of a phrase. I don't
if I like it either, but never never waste a
good crisis, and I think we do need to have
a look at the learnings that we can get out
of this and what we can put in place now,
especially while it's still mind on how they can sort
of change the way that we do business so we're
better prepared next time.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
First things first, is there anybody still without power?

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Do you know? Or is everything back up and running
as it was?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I think there's still a very small handful of people
without power. But I guess the message from PowerNet is
if you are without power, make sure you reach out
to them and get in touch, because they're pretty confident
they've got a handle of everyone and they've been reaching
out and talking to people. But yeah, if you are
without then definitely get in touch with them and let
them know. But I know they were planning on having

(01:36):
everyone sort of back on board and connected sort of
on the end of this week. You get into early
next week, so it might just be one or two
of the more sort of complicated ones to get back online.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Because you're hearing of the time frame for people to
get their farms up and running against Sarah Swimble and
Farming at Lawrence telling me yesterday she's thinking may perhaps
a year before they can get infrastructure back up and
running as they had it.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
That's a hell of a thing to have to try
and comprehend.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it is. And I mean you've got your whole
sort of plan, your feature mapped out, and your farm
plans and everything, and you're tracking down a certain road
and then all of a sudden it gets kind of
tipped upside down and I think it's important to kind
of just take a step back and have a look
at adjusting those plans going forward, and even talking to
you your farm advisers, in your banks, and all of
those sorts of people, just to make sure that we're

(02:25):
getting ourselves set up as best as possible for what
there's going to be a bit of a different pathway
for some people in terms of that future.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
From your perspective there being the mad rob, do you
think people have coached pretty well all things considered.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Oh, people have been awesome that every time I talk
to people can get more and more of the stories
of the community wrapping around each other. And I was
at a bit of a conference yesterday and one of
the speakers was saying about the type scrub gets you
a successful rugby game, and I think South and We've
got a very tight scrum in terms of all of

(03:02):
our communities, and that sort of helps us sort of
push through and get through. But I think as we
start to get longer and longer into this event, the
adrenaline kind of runs off and the anxiety kind of
comes in and people start to feel it. So the
rural support trusts have been awesome in this and yeah,
I just encourage anyone to reach out to that eight

(03:23):
hundred number at seven eight seven for that confidential support
because people are going to need it. It's there's quite
a long tail to this, and yes that people need
to reach out if they are feeling the strain of
it all.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Rob you've been openly critical regarding the government and the
funding allocation to the South.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Why is this?

Speaker 2 (03:47):
I think it's I mean, we've got to reflect that
there's no such thing as government money. It's all taxpayer money.
But it's when we look at the South contribution to
the country, we need to make sure that when times
are tough down here that we can get some of
that back. And the government have said that that's not
all the amount that they're going to be giving us.

(04:09):
That Merial Relief Fund didn't get a huge contribution to
the government and that kind of helps with the running
of some of the stuff. But I think it'll be
quite good to get the data around what the total
cost of this whole sort of clean up in response
operation is going to be and also the cost to
the economy. Like talking to darien Zed and looking at

(04:30):
I mean, we're getting into the sort of around twenty
million dollars worth of lost production, so it's not in
significant numbers. And I think we just need to make
sure that we're not asking the government for a handout,
and no one wants that, but just that we can
get a bit of a hand up to make sure
that we can get back on track as soon as possible.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
And that's probably the concern.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
I suppose when you look forward into the future, the
self gets lost and the transitioning of the of the
media cycle and the likes and everything else goes on,
but all of a sudden, down here, we're still lump
in the situation.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, and it's I mean, you look
at something in the big city that makes you up
and well into at the moment if you had that
kind of an impact up here, and businesses had been
sort of hat to be hearing about it for weeks
and we kind of our own kind of I guess
the South and way of just getting on with it
can be able to accurse at times because we don't
mean it kind of loses the overside of what's happening.

(05:25):
But I think that the fact that we're going to
have a long clean up for some of our farms
in terms of cleaning up all the trees and everything
shouldn't be forgotten about and should be kind of recognized.
But it's also I mean, there is insurance and there's
that kind of that self responsibility and there as well
that comes in. So there's a bit of a balance
between expecting government to hand out and help everyone out

(05:48):
every time there's a disaster, because this seems to be
more and more of these as well, and we can't
just keep alying on the government to bawl everyone out
as well. But there's a yeah, there's a there's a
fine balance there, I think.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
No, I mean, the argument is there the charity begins
at home, given that we give the Cook Islands millions
and millions of dollars when we need to look after
our own backyard first.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Totally agree, and that's the messaging I've been passing on
as well. So yeah, we do need to get that right,
because it's easy to sign a check for one or
two million overseas and then you're getting one hundred and
fifty grand down south. Doesn't really compare us.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
It well, speaking to other people up there, likes of
your fellow meres and the likes do they agree.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, yeah, no they do, and yeah, we're having a
conversation last night around that the quantum of Yeah, like
you say, looking after our own we do need to
make sure we do that just as well as we
look after our neighbors.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
The massive issue of rural connectivity. We've talked about this
a lot and we just can't reiterate it enough. Was
pretty much three G that got us through that weather event,
and that was like one bar of texting if you
were fortunate enough there. But the situation being with three
G is that it finishes and they're not too just
in future, are you rallying to keep the service up
and running due to what we've seen.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, I think we need to have a good conversation
with the talcos and kind of work out what the
resilience of the networks is going to be going forward
and what plans they're putting in place. I mean, it's
all good where we put in plans for our businesses
and we do our own stuff, but there's a reliance
on those networks now as we are, particularly given the
copper networks now gone, so you can't just pick up
the old hand phone anymore and use that. So there's

(07:31):
a I guess there's a reliance on those networks, and
I know that one New Zealand are working with that
satellite kind of link, but I have heard that that
that didn't work as well for some people. And I
think there was supposed to be always the ability to
text if you had a line of slight to the sky,
but a couple of weren't able to text on that

(07:51):
network as well. So having a chat with those talcos
I think forms a bigger part of this kind of
future planning going forwards.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Arguably service in South And has got worse over the
past six months or so.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, Yeah, and it's something that we need to the
productivity of us all in the modern age today where
we're using our phones a lot. Yeah, if you can
get good coverage around the whole South And on a
normal day, it certainly helps with people's productivity. And yeah,
when times are tough in the state of emergency, we
definitely need to make sure that we've got good coverage

(08:27):
and resilience in that network.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
RAP Scott's South and District mayor always appreciate your time
on the muster.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
You enjoy the weekend and safe travels.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Thanks RAP.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Scott's South and District Mayor.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Thanks for South and Rural Support Trust and conjunction with
community trusts. South Don Morrison as a Volleybank farmer as
well as being an alliance for Director.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
We catch up next