One and One Don't Make Three
OPINION: Since when did one and one make three? Who didn't smell an elephant-sized rat when our leaders decided to give $60 million to save the cement factory in Northland?
The National MP for Taranaki says question time can get nasty.
"But if you want to build bridges – most of the time in select committee we get on extremely well. In the primary production and health [committee] we hardly ever have a cross word. It is really good to know we are working in the same direction."
Speaking at the Dairy Women's Network conference on behalf of Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy, Kuriger says she learnt about building bridges at the Global Women Breakthrough Leadership Programme she won as the first-ever Dairy Woman of the Year in 2012.
At the course were 20 women from Auckland, four from Wellington and her. Then she realised they were from industries such as electricity, finance, insurance and telecommunications, all connected to the dairy industry.
"That told me we don't have a problem, we only have communication issues. If we talk to everybody – most people don't gang up on us as we think they do."
We hear noise out there in the media and we react to it, she says. But actually most people are just like us and we have things in common.
Kuriger says she had a lot of support in becoming an MP, but serving on the Fonterra Shareholders Council and chairing the LIC council gave her a good grounding.
"You have a whole lot of elected people who are put in the same room; you just have to learn the skills on how to get on."
She entered Parliament fresh from the Global Women programme and said "by the year 2020 I don't want to be talking about the rural-urban divide".
"My objective is to be closing that up," she says. "We are good at reinventing our wheels, but if we join forces there is much more we can do."
When she went into Parliament people asked her what one person in 120 could do. Kuriger said she would find the other people who wanted the same things and collaborate.
"The biggest thrill I have had in my first year as an MP is to build a brand within our party called Provincial Priorities."
This involves visits by the agricultural caucus to rural electorates across New Zealand to find out what's important to people in the countryside.
Meeting the Rural Health Alliance and opening the Rural Nurses Conference were some initiatives off the back of that.
"That whole rural thing is right in vogue at the moment... the connections between urban and rural in my world are getting much, much closer and with your support we can really make a difference."
She told the DWN conference dinner that the only things preventing dairy women from taking their next step are courage and confidence.
"You will have the skills, you are all out there running multi-million dollar businesses, you are all the directors of finance, HR and communications and all the other things you are doing in your life every day. [Now exercise] the confidence and courage to step up and say 'yes I can do it'."
