Deliverance
OPINION: Rural services such as banks, health and postal services have been declining for years, so this mutt was tickled pink to hear Rural Women NZ on national TV slamming the impact of post office closures in rural areas.
It will be a focus of Rural Women's advocacy role next year because she believes any more increases in the minimum wage will cause a collapse in home support services in rural areas.
None of the district health boards, in their funding of rural home support, has passed on the three most recent minimum wage increases, McGowan told Rural News.
The home support service provides housework and personal care to people in their homes including elderly, ACC cases and people with temporary medical issues, for instance major surgery.
"The greatest threat will be the collapse of the rural services," says McGowan. "It will happen before it happens in [towns]. I don't know if New Zealand has the capability to care for these people within our hospitals or rest homes.
"Rural Women will advocate strongly for their industry to be given their own funding rather than it coming through district health boards. The boards aren't passing on some of the funding."
She says all the workers are on the minimum wage and some are above, but a further increase will collapse the rural home support industry. Distances travelled by rural workers mean they attend to fewer people in a day than urban workers. "More money has gone into the sector but this has only kept up with the increase in volume as the population ages," she says.
McGowan grew up in Fairlie, Canterbury, where her father had a transport business. She met a young shepherd, her husband Rusty, and moved to his 260h family farm in Kaharoa, Bay of Plenty, in 1974. They farmed sheep and beef, moved on to dairy grazing and now lease it for dairy and sheep and beef. They keep their hand in with 30 sheep and she still helps her husband in the woolshed with the fleeces.
McGowan joined Rural Women at age 20. She served a three-year term as national vice-president, and has been the national councillor for Bay of Plenty/Coromandel for the last eight years, taking a special interest in land-use issues, bio-security and food safety.
She was Rotorua Taupo president of Federated Farmers at a time when was the variations were starting to come out on water quality. She was also on a biosecurity taskforce for 18 months and a Rural Women representative on the Consumer Forum.
McGowan says the role of president will be fulltime and another 2014 focus will be Rural Women's involvement in the UN International Year of Family Farming. The organisation is planning nationwide events in March and April to highlight the important role of family farms in provincial economic prosperity.
"We have teamed up with Doug Avery, the 2013 Landcorp Communicator of the Year, to run events next March and April and we are working through the Royal Agricultural Society. We have confirmed A&P showground venues in Stratford, Carterton, Motueka, Rangiora and Ashburton. Further events are planned but we are yet to organise events for the top of the north."
- By Pam Tipa
