‘Drop in bucket’
Quick look around the rural traps
The announcement this week of more funding for rural connectivity is positive, but is just a drop in the required connectivity bucket, says Federated Farmers telecommunications spokesman Andrew Hoggard. The Government’s pledge of an additional $21 million toward the creation of ‘regional digital hubs’ in rural areas is good to see, he says. “But the investment really just highlights to us that rural business and communities deserve as much chance as their urban counterparts to flourish.” Hoggard suggested the IRD shift to payday filing on April 1. “If you have decent connectivity then you will be able to comply with this change simply. Staff will be able to log their hours via their smartphones, which can go into your cloud-based Payroll software, which will then automatically pay everyone, and send the required data to IRD. Without decent connectivity, smartphones are useless along with cloud-based software.”