Southland battles through tough first seven months of the year

Sunday, 19 July 2020

Mataura resident Lana Rangi speaks about living in temporary accomodation until the family home is repaired from the February floods.

Mataura resident Lana Rangi is still living in temporary accommodation after her home was damaged in the Southland floods.

She expects to return to her home within the next month and is looking forward to some normality.

Without a doubt, the south had a tough start to the year. Two major state of emergencies in Fiordland and Southland, a global pandemic, and then the news the Tiwai smelter will close.

Insurance companies reported $19.7 million in claims related to the floods in Southland, while the Gore District Council expected repairs to council property to cost $2m. The Government has set aside $13.73m to pay for DOC-owned infrastructure damaged after the torrential rains in Fiordland, and repairs to Milford Road would climb to at least $8m.

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Mataura resident Lana Rangi is getting ready to move back into her home that was damaged by floods in February. On the left is her home and to the right is the temporary housing that was put in place for her to live in.

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Te Anau, the community who rely on the national park’s international visitors, is facing a 33 per cent jump in unemployment rates and has already lost $92.3m in tourism spending in 2020.

Rangi says it best when she simply says “it’s been a prick of a year”.

Pam Yorke's farm was one of the worst affected by flood waters on the Wyndham- Mataura back road.

She hopes the south can catch a better break in the next half of the year.

Southland District Council deputy mayor Ebel Kremer said when you weigh up all the things that have happened in the past six months, they’re collectively quite significant.

“They’re going to have a lasting impact … I think Southlanders have certainly been challenged, but they’re resilient.”

Kremer believed it was highly unlikely that the borders would reopen for spring, which is when the Fiordland community welcomed most of its tourists.

While Government’s wage subsidy had created a cushion, there was a growing concern about a second wave of job losses when the subsidy scheme ended, he said.

“There’s fear of the unknown and what that would mean for individual families,” he said.

Most of the flood repair work on Pam Yorke’s farm has been done, but it would still be a tight few months farming in winter.

There were also people in the community that would be directly affected by the closure of Tiwai, she said.

Yorke feels that central government needs to provide a clearer direction to where it is going.

She’s looking forward to summer and, hopefully, steady leadership from the government.

Southland has not come to a screaming halt despite these major issues. Work began immediately to repair flood damage in Fiordland with two key Great Walk, the Milford and Routeburn tracks expected to re-open in spring.

The Government announced a tranche of Provincial Growth Funding to businesses in June and July, including major funding of $25m for the Homer Tunnel.

Otago Southland Employers’ Association chief executive Virginia Nicholls said Southland’s manufacturing industry was bouncing back.

Southland and Otago scored 50.3 points for the Performance Manufacturing index in July – up from 38.9 in May and 20.8 in April.

A score above 50 indicates growth, while lower scores show a decline.

Federated Farmers vice-president Bernadette Hunt

She highlighted the building projects in Invercargill as green shoots.

“We have a new hotel being built, and the new city centre being built which is good for construction and the associated services.”

Nicholls believed the Southern Institute of technology may benefit from a high number of Southlanders hoping to retrain.

This year Southern Institute of Technology was merged with 15 other institutes and polytechnics into the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology.

SIT acting chief executive Maree Howden said its flagship Zero Fees scheme would continue for the next two years but its long-term future would be in the hands NZIST.

There were opportunities through the merger as it enabled them to uptake programmes from other polytechnics to meet the needs of the community, Howden said.

Whilst it had been a terrible year for Southland, an education organisation could be a strength to provide services to the community, she said.

The agriculture industry has been in sharp focus since the lockdown, with expectations that it might be able to soak up jobs lost as a result of Covid-19’s impact on the economy – particularly jobs in the tourism sector.

But it hasn’t been a smooth start to the year either for some farmers either.

Mataura resident Lana Rangi is looking forward to breaking in her fire place when she returns to her home after the February floods.

Federated Farmers vice-president Bernadette Hunt said there were farmers whose whole farms were completely under water during the floods, which would have been an incredibly stressful time.

Food stock on farms, for the most part, wasn’t the main issue any more. Instead, farmers were facing a shortage of migrant workers for the upcoming spring and summer with borders expected to still be closed, she said.

Hunt hoped central government’s recognition of the importance of agriculture would lead to more regulations to support farming.

Farmers were quite resilient and used to dealing with situations that were out of their control, she said.

Her advice to people needing to make difficult decisions was: don’t procrastinate and take control of the things you can.

Kremer warned there would be more tough times ahead as Southland recovered and planned for its future.

He encouraged anyone feeling vulnerable or down to reach out to one of the many Southland agencies or organisations who could help.

“We will get through this, that’s the key,” Kremer said.

Rangi expects life to return to normal when she moves back into her home in August and it’s the simple things such as sitting by the fireplace which she was looking forward to the most.

“We don’t do too well with change in the south, and we have had a lot of it.”