Comment from the Capital

Press, 9 July 1979, Page 16

Comment from the Capital

lems there tend to come to you. They tend to get buried in the cities, and they tend to explode on you there,” he said. Ail West Coast members have had their troubles in getting home for the weekend. This still applies. There are two flights into and out of the Coast on any day — and unfortunately they are both at the same time. One comes in from Nelson and flies on to Christchurch; the other goes from Christchurch to Hokitika and on to Wellington. They cross between Westport and Hokitika.

Because they are both in mid-afternoon, Mr Burke has to leave his Greymouth home on Monday afternoon to be in Wellington for com-mittee-work on Tuesdays. He has to leave Wellington before the House rises if he wants to get home on Fridays. As a man with two prim-ary-school-aged sons, who need his presence, Mr Burke is grateful to the party whips for their forbearance. It will not always work out that way. Paddy Blanchfield had some shattering travel experiences during his time in Parliament.

Another way in which Kerry Burke finds the West Coast different from some electorates is that there are no opposite influences, such as town versus country.

“There is no big-city in-

fluence, as there is inclined to be in Rangiora. The farming influence on the West Coast is not as great as it is in Canterbury, although the country influence is strong. Most of the West Coast, I guess, is ‘country,’ though within the country areas you

have townships — Blackball, Dobson, Reefton. They, and Granity in the Buller, are significant areas of population, but they regard themselves as country rather than town.”

There is a change, he says. “Perhaps Reefton is getting too big to be put into that category, but certainly places like Stillwater,

Dobson, Blackball, Taylorville — they regard themselves as country people, though they may work in sawmills, or in shops and offices in Greymouth. They tend to identify with country rather than town.” Asked: “What are you aiming for?” Kerry Burke replied: “The most immediate concern is to ensure that the economy can stabilise on the Coast — in other words that it does not run down so that the economic base of regions on the West Coast is put beyond the stage from which it is able to recover. “We have resources, if we can ensure that they are developed and used properly.

“The immediate concern is to hold what we have, and to try to diversify the economy by expanding farming, and by going back into coalmining in a somewhat bigger way; also by expanding the plantings of exotic forests, to build up an economic base which is renewable rather than extractive. From the pioneer days people tended to extract the wealth and take it away.”

Having succeeded in holding what is there, Mr Burke would like to see regional development based on known resources, this would include some kind of regional investment agencies, so that people could put their money into West Coast projects. He tends to get a little angry when talking about this.