National's Maureen Pugh unseated Labour's Damien O'Connor who has held the seat since 1993. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
National's new West Coast-Tasman MP Maureen Pugh says her communities have been calling out for change and now they've got it.
Pugh has been a list MP since 2015, but took the seat from long-standing Labour MP Damien O'Connor with less than 1000 votes between them.
O'Connor has held the seat since 1993, apart from one term as a list MP.
Pugh said she had been hearing lots of frustration from communities.
"Things had become very, very tough. The whole bureaucratic grind that businesses, farmers, even individuals were forced to go through in order to get anything done was slowing everything down, and the frustration with that was enormous."
She said it was a massive privilege and responsibility to become an electorate MP and she would not take it for granted.
She wanted to explore more renewable energy projects to make power cheaper and encourage more businesses to set up shop.
"The West Coast pays about 25 percent more for its electricity, and while you've got high energy costs, very unlikely you're going to attract new business, new processing or manufacturing.
"So in order to get local generation, we are then able to provide better, reliable, and hopefully cheaper electricity energy, and then that way we can attract more business. But very difficult when you're one of the highest rates of electricity in the country."
Pugh said she also wanted to champion labour issues and that she was unhappy about some of the changes to the RSE scheme.
In particular, she said the recent increases to minimum pay had encouraged some employers to consider alternatives.
"It's now more profitable in the long term for them to automate a lot of the processes than it is to get real people to do that work.
"So you've got to be really careful when you make those changes to a system that has evolved over time and when you make a sudden change, you clearly haven't thought through the consequences of that."
Westland District mayor Helen Lash was not surprised that her region swung back to blue this election, saying Covid with its lockdowns and border closure was the start of the revolt.
"People aren't after a handout, they're actually after a plan and that's been lacking. But I think since Covid, that's been the real issue is that there's been no plan on how to move New Zealand out of that shutdown mode and kick some vibrancy back into [the] economy and what we're going to rely on to do that, and I think in that respect, people have just had a guts full."
She said the region's economy had struggled under the Labour government.
"Farmers are getting a rough time, mining's been shut down, coal mining's been shut down - that's the backbone of the West Coast. So you can only tolerate so much bashing and the closure of so many things before you've got to stand up and say 'we don't accept this anymore, we need to start pushing back'.
"I think this is what the election has shown. West Coast is pushing back for what they believe they should be able to have and do here."
The three mayors and the chair of the regional council have been meeting to create a proposal for the new government looking at resilience, giving the Coast more independence and helping to make it more viable to operate off its small rate base, she said.
Pugh had been a great advocate for the electorate and she was looking forward to a change, Lash said.
She felt that there had not been support for agriculture, mining, minerals, hydro, which she said were important to the West Coast and needed to be developed further.
"There's a huge reset happening in the country, isn't there? You look at ACT and New Zealand First, Te Pāti Māori, Greens. I think we're seeing probably a reset in mindset and direction."
Pugh said O'Connor had called her on election night.
"He was very gracious, congratulated me. At that point, I was downplaying it because I've been caught by the special votes twice in history, and both times the specials have knocked me out. So in on election day and out once the specials were counted."
She was humbled by the support that got her into this position.
"You never know quite how humbling it is to be representing your community in Parliament. But it is massively important.
"We make decisions that impact on everyone and so we should never, ever forget the influence we have over people's lives and strive to do better for them."
Damien O'Connor has been approached for comment.
