Having come out of retirement due to his distaste of the Maori party and ACT party forming a coalition in the last term, model-frod starts his campaign for election in Waitaki. He is joined by a number of his supporters in a rather low-key evening gathering in Hot Tubs Omarama

What view this is, the stars are so bright, and this is one of the best business ideas that I have seen in this region, really pandering to the nature/outdoors crowd here.

Frod is talking to the owner-operator of the business whilst sharing a hot tub with him

What do you think is the best part about living in Omarama?

Hot tub operator: It has to be the variety of people coming through here, who are so passionate about the landscape around us, we get all types, all of whom sing the praises of this area, even if they have only been here for a short time, the surroundings captivate them, and I for one think that we need to keep working to make sure this is an excellent place to visit.

Frod: What do you mean by making it a good place to visit?

The operator responds

Look, we've had issues in the past that have meant that the Mackenzie has not been as safe as it could be, especially regarding the roading network, and it would be this, and possibly the change of what people do in the Mackenzie Basin, theres a significant need to protect what we have, otherwise theres a significant chance that we’ll lose visitors elsewhere, as tourists are considering the environment much more closely when making decisions.

Frod ponders this

You make some amazing points here, and Labour would love to make a number of these true. In particular, labour will look to give local authorities a much stronger say in the way that their road networks are operated from a speed perspective, and will be introducing measure that would allow local authorities to apply for safety infrastructure on their roads, and identify areas within their district on the state highway network that need more work done to make them safer, working with Waka Kotahi to deliver this. In addition, Labour would look to introduce a new infrastructure fund with a significant focus on the regional parts of the south island to increase safety and resilience.

From an environmental perspective, labour is open to investigating further environmental protection on widespread tracts of the Mackenzie Basin, including the tenure review process, and new parks/reserves under the conservation and parks and reserves acts, to ensure that this landscape is properly protected, in addition there will be investigation of a new kind of conservation area in regard to the filming of the location of lord of the rings and the hobbit, to ensure that we are doing what we need to, to protect the environment, as many of these locations can at times suffer from over-tourism creating detrimental impacts, whilst this is largely irrelevant in the Mackenzie, for those over the other side of the Lindis, there is likely to be a significant impact. This is currently at early stages of development, and a couple of the options may be limits on visitors with organised tour groups, tour group fees, or general admission fees of up to 5 dollars per person.

Does that make sense to you, in things we can do?

Operator: Thats really interesting policy, I do wonder whether we’ll be able to get people on board with further protection in the mackenzie, as some people have had land in the families for generations up here.

Frod acknowledges: Look, you make a good point here, and I think the first thing we need to do in this case is to reach out to the community and hear what they think, the goal isn't to completely wipe out dairy, or other high impact industries from the basin overnight, but instead look and see if we can find ways for people to operate primary industries more sustainably, freeing up land to be protected, this may be through technological methods, subsidy, or government purchase, in anyway, we need to do this in a way thats for the benefit of the country, and the region.