Urban rural disconnect raised on first day of Rural Women NZ's conference

Monday, 17 May 2021

Rural Women New Zealand Southland regional committee members at the lower South Island Region One conference in Invercargill. The two-day conference is being held at the Kelvin Hotel.

Issues of women’s health in Southland and the urban and rural divide were raised at the Rural Women New Zealand conference in Invercargill on Monday.

RWNZ national president Gill Naylor said maternity and women’s health were big issues that Southlanders had concerns with.

“The whole rural midwife scenario throughout the country needs a lot of work, really. We’ve got to have healthy midwives to deliver healthy babies.”

The Lumsden Maternity Centre was downgraded to a maternal and child hub in 2019, despite protests for it to remain a birthing unit.

RWNZ chief executive Gabrielle O'Brien, left, and national president Gill Naylor at the RWNZ region one conference held at the Kelvin Hotel in Invercargill.

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Thriving Southland project lead Richard Kyte was a guest speaking at the RWNZ lower South Island Region One conference in Invercargill on Monday.

Newly appointed Rural Women chief executive Gabrielle O’Brien said having only been in her new role the past two weeks, it had come to her attention that the lack of services in many rural communities had become an issue.

“Just being aware of the impact that lots of services has on rural communities and the changes with cheques, with banks disappearing from rural communities and what that means in terms of other businesses.”

During question time after guest speaker Thriving Southland’s project lead Richard Kyte’s speech, audience members raised concerns that there were not enough positive stories in media about agriculture for the youth to be interested enough to join the rural workforce.

To bridge that gap with the youth of New Zealand, positive stories needed to be told, Kyte said.

“It’s important we tell our stories. I think farmers got scared of telling their stories because they don’t want to be seen as ‘oh we’re doing something wrong’ and somebody’s going to get a hold of it.

“Share the good stuff that’s happening. It is happening,” he said.

Another audience member raised the issue of a disconnect between parliament and farmers in the misconception that farmers were ruining the environment.

Kyte agreed there was a disconnect and there needed to be an increase rapport between the two.

O’Brien, when asked about the disconnect between parliament and the urban population to farming, she said RWNZ was a connector between the two.

“As a national organisation we have that capacity to get that information and talk to our members to understand what those rural issues are, and then we’re able to share those in the forms that in an urban environment.

“We need to stop thinking about us and them, rural and urban, the issues are the same for everybody. We all care about the climate, we all care about sustainability, so we all need to work together,” she said.

Rural Women New Zealand’s lower South Island region one conference is being held in Invercargill for the first time in two years and continues on Tuesday.