Falloon outlines big post-election plans
If he is elected in September’s general election, ‘‘one of the first things’’ National Rangitata candidate Andrew Falloon will do is speak to the region’s investors about building a four-lane highway between Christchurch and Timaru.
Hosted by GreyPower Timaru after its annual meeting yesterday, Falloon told more than 30 members a major ‘‘concern’’ of his was creating strong infrastructure and building up the Port of Timaru from a ’’resilience perspective’’, to make it ‘‘more important’’.
‘‘As we’ve seen, it wouldn’t take much for the Port of Lyttelton to go down,’’ he said, in reference to the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.
If the port at Lyttelton fell over, Timaru would be the port the South Island called on, he said.
‘‘My absolute ideal situation, which is not something an MP or Government can promise, [is that] I would like to create a four-lane highway between Timaru and Christchurch to open up the port.’’
If he was elected in September, he would sit down with investors in the region and build out a plan to achieve this, Falloon said.
Water storage, eliminating mobile blackspots and a demand for increased care for senior citizens were other topics he was questioned on by GreyPower members yesterday.
Falloon said he was committed to ‘‘sensible developments’’ in order to maintain the region’s strong rural economy while also cleaning up the electorate’s waterways.
He would live in South Canterbury if elected, to be ‘‘close to the people and the issues’’.
Falloon’s selection as the party’s candidate comes after current Rangitata MP Jo Goodhew, who has held the seat for four terms, since 2005, decided not to seek re-election. She lost her ministerial roles during a cabinet reshuffle in December.
Falloon was hopeful the area could see both positive economic and environmental outcomes.
‘‘I do have concerns about environmental issues as they relate around farming ... we can have both positive environmental and economic outcomes.’’
He suggested a potential solution to this was more water storage.
There was plenty of water but it was not being stored well enough, he believed.
‘‘For the rural sector the stars are aligning for strong economic growth in New Zealand.’’
But to allow for ‘‘sensible developments’’, farmers, government and environmentalists needed to sit down to discuss the best outcome for all.
He also solutions to hoped to eliminate create mobile blackspots in the area, so ‘‘people can work from anywhere’’, and put ‘‘more police on the ground’’ to care for the region’s large senior citizen population.
He said he would like to see up to an extra 70 police in South Canterbury to ensure the elderly ‘‘feel safe’’ and those involved in crime ‘‘know they are being watched’’.
GreyPower Timaru president Denise Fitzgerald said she was pleased with Falloon’s visit.
She believed he had spoken very well on the issues put before him and was ‘‘very articulate’’.
The other Rangitata candidates announced so far are Labour’s Jo Luxton, current Green list MP Mojo Mathers, and Olly Wilson, of The Opportunities Party.