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It's great to be back home in our little piece of paradise - my heart lifted as I drove down the Rimutaka hill and saw the beautiful Wairarapa plains stretching out below. So my disappointment was even more pronounced when I learned that two particularly distressing events had happened while I was away.
The first was the awful attack on the Carterton family at Tasti Takeaways. We have all been working hard to spread the anti-violence message and to have this happen is very discouraging. It is especially outrageous when young vulnerable children are put at risk and terrified and I want to encourage Wairarapa people to give every support to police in their search for this cowardly offender/congratulate everyone who helped the police in arresting this cowardly offender. This sort of violence is simply unacceptable.
I was also shocked to hear of Telecom's plans to once again hit rural areas where it hurts through outrageous charges for services. This company is simply not in tune with the difficulties facing rural areas such as the Wairarapa with our large geographical areas and relatively small populations.
Charging someone $30,000 for an extra land line when there is no alternative is simply extortion. Many areas around Wairarapa's coastline don't receive mobile coverage so residents don't have the luxury of having that alternative option as city dwellers do. I am disappointed that Telecom has made this decision, having made encouraging signs to me and the three district mayors last year when we met over toll charges. We are already paying exorbitant prices for tolls within the district and now Telecom wants to charge for new land lines! The whole thing flies in the face of the Kiwi Share intention and I am taking the matter up with Minister of Communications, Hon Paul Swain, to see what can be done to make Telecom see sense and what regulatory controls this Government can put in place to thwart these charges.
Carterton's Wild Oats café will celebrate their first birthday this week by baking a huge cake for the town, and four schools will help them to eat it. This will hopefully give the students extra fuel for sitting their exams - good luck to all of you. And congratulations to all of you who have completed another year of your education, as well as those who have received awards at this year's prizegivings. Also to be congratulated are the schools in our region who are putting so much into ensuring our young people develop their self esteem, motivation for learning, and optimism for the future. Makoura College has gone a step further this year by opening its second chance teaching unit, helping teenagers who would otherwise have had to drop out of school to continue their education. I salute all the young people who have made the effort and continued with their learning. I know that it is difficult to overcome adversity but I am sure that, like me, they will achieve their goals.
The good news for the region is that more of our young high achievers are staying at home rather than leaving for overseas when they finish their education. Recent figures show that this 'brain stay' factor is clearly impacting on unemployment figures, along with the 3,000 new jobs that have been created in the last 3 months. Since Labour came into office in 1999 115,000 more New Zealanders have been employed, resulting in the low unemployment figure of 5.4 percent. This is significantly below the OECD average of 6.9 percent and that of Australia (6.2 percent) and the United States (5.7 percent). However, the figure of 12% unemployment for Māori is still unacceptably high. Labour continues to focus resources on solving this and on further employment growth - we believe strongly that getting a job is the best welfare policy of all.
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