Southern voters say the cost of living and housing are at the top of their list for the upcoming election.
The treasurers of the four major parties will face off in front of a sold-out crowd at a debate in Queenstown on Thursday night.
Sausage rolls may be a popular snack for some politicians, but Fantail Kitchen & Larder owner Kerry Tackney says the cost of sausage meat has skyrocketed and eaten into her profits.
When she opened her doors in Ranfurly six years ago, it cost just over $15 for five kilos.
“As of today, we’re paying $63 for the same [five kilograms], which gives us almost zero margin on this one product line that we’ve only managed to increase by 50 cents in the last six years because it’s kind of a deterrent to people. But they don’t realise how much we’re losing on that one item.
The cost of living has taken a toll on her small business.
“It brings down a lot of our customers’ spending,” says Tackney.
“It makes it harder for us because our margins have gone down. Sometimes we don’t get paid because we can’t even pay some of our bills because we can’t make that margin.”
She wanted to see policies that would realistically reduce the cost of living and the cost of raw materials.
“Taxes would be great if we could have a little bit of a tax break because we’re not making the money. Our GST is just through the roof.
“We’ve got to scrimp and save and try to get that paid because otherwise we’re going into more debt because we can’t pay it.”
Central Otago District Mayor Tim Cadogan said housing and the cost of living were top of mind for many of his constituents in this election, but climate change was also up there.
When he first donned the mayor’s chains seven years ago, the district’s population was about 18,000 – now it’s about 25,000.
“That’s put a lot of pressure on our housing market, and we’ve also had a lot of people buying holiday homes, and that’s feeding into everything,” Cadogan said.
“If you’re paying a large proportion of your income on your mortgage or your rates, it becomes difficult to do anything else.”
Renters wanted more stability after years of pandemic, he said.
“It’s the constant change and the constant pressure of ‘what’s my rent going to be next week’ or ‘how much is petrol going to be a litre’ and so on that just wears people down.”
Less than 50 per cent of eligible voters turned out to vote in Central Otago’s last council election.
But Cadogan hoped there would be a much better turnout this time.
In Omakau, resident Mervyn Crane was semi-retired and fed up with the cost of living.
He was also concerned about law and order, and thought the gun laws had gone too far.
“I’d also like to see if they could list when they’ve made an arrest, how many law-abiding, licensed citizens are they arresting, and how many are they arresting who are not registered firearms owners, so we can get some perspective on what’s going on.”
The Queenstown Chamber of Commerce hosted the ASB Great Debate.
Chief executive Sharon Fifield said inflation was putting pressure on businesses.
“What businesses would really like to see, I think, first and foremost, is a reduction in compliance. So things like fair pay agreements are on the table. That doesn’t really sit so well on top of everything else like immigration accreditation et cetera, so all of those are just lumping costs on businesses.”
The sold-out event takes place in Queenstown on Thursday from 7pm to 9pm and will be streamed live on the RNZ website.
