Minister of Rural Communities Mark Patterson held a public meeting at the Gore Town & Country Club on Friday afternoon to connect with the issues of Southland.
The minister said, though it sounded a bit "namby pamby", he was on a "listening tour" to gather feedback for his party to use to build policy for the next election.
In his opening speech, he spoke of the similarities — and differences — of the coalition government, its endeavour to get rid of the "red and green tape" and the last government’s mistakes.
The three parties agreed "pretty much" on the bigger picture, but NZ First were more at the "interventionist" end, making things happen, he said.
Interventions included the $1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund developed by himself and Shane Jones.
The economy, inflation and cost-of-living crisis were the fault of the previous Labour Party government, he said.
"[It] is a sort of direct impact of some really, really bad-quality spending towards the tail end of the last government."
Southland had been going "gangbusters" in terms of industry growth, Mr Patterson said.
Datagrid NZ’s proposed data centre in Makarewa would be a "massive opportunity" for Southland.
But he received pushback from the crowd, one member of the community expressing concerns about the "enormous" amounts of power such centres needed.
Data centres generated a lot of heat which took power to cool down, and had surges needing random bursts of power, which all cost, the man said.
He did not want to see that cost subsidised by the general public.
Mr Patterson said he was apprehensive at first about the centres too, but he had come around.
There was potential for 500-600 jobs, as the project sized up, 10ha of greenhouses using the industrial heat and up to 3500 jobs in auxiliary surrounding businesses.
"That’s the modelling they’ve put to us."
Concerns around the proposed deregulation of genetic engineering and modification were also brought up, as were Mr Jones’ recent comments denouncing the proposal.
Mr Patterson said Mr Jones had made comments on the proposed deregulation of genetic engineering at a meeting in Hutt Valley last week, but the crowd’s applause had drowned out some of his qualifying remarks.
The Gene Technology Bill, which passed its first reading in Parliament last December, remains a contentious issue.
Mr Patterson said NZ First supporters remained sceptical and that the party had received significant public feedback on the matter.
Dr William Rolleston, a strong supporter of the Bill who was attending the meeting in Gore, recalled Mr Jones’ warning about not allowing "Frankenstein" into the environment.
Addressing public concerns about consumer and health authority reactions to GMO use in farming, Dr Rolleston assured that no genetic modifications had faced health authority objections and emphasised that farmers grew GM crops only where there was market demand.
"Farmers wouldn’t grow GM crops if they didn’t think there was a market for it," the doctor said.
Mr Patterson declined to comment further, citing the Bill’s current status before the parliamentary committee.
