The Contemporary Meaning of 'Rural Development' in New Zealand

Emily Phillips and Hugh Campbell

The Contemporary Meaning of 'Rural Development' in New Zealand

There is a growing feeling among political commentators that the election of the Clinton Administration in the USA has signalled a movement away from new right political ideologies among OECD countries. At the same time the failure of the conservative Coalition in the recent Australian federal election may indicate a small move away from the free market as the sole arbiter of policy. One area which will interest the readers of Rural Society is any change which might occur in the policies surrounding regional development.

In both New Zealand and Australia there has been a tangible shift towards the right, with a removal of state support for rural services. In the New Zealand case there has been a reduction of direct state investment into regions, closure of schools and post offices and a devolution of power from the state to local government. In this vacuum has emerged a growing ideology of `self-help' as a development strategy for rural towns and regions. Commentators have already condemned this move as both a transparent attempt by the state to cut costs (Robinson, 1990) and a sure means to create polarisation between those towns which are fortuitously situated and those which don't have a ready made tourist attraction near at hand (Humphreys, 1988).

The tendency for development to occur in an uneven and sporadic form can be ably demonstrated from the long list of derelict rural towns which experience their fifteen-minutes of fame on Four Corners or the 7.30 Report. This article focuses on a different set of problems associated with small towns that engage in Self Help schemes or, the latest favourite of regional developers, the Local Employment Initiative (Sorensen, 1988). Rather than look at the failed end of the rural spectrum, we examine two towns which have been touted in New Zealand as glowing examples of what happens when a small community un-couples from agriculture and diversifies into a major new industry. There are many consequences that may arise from rapid economic development in a small community, but - for the purposes of this discussion - we will concentrate on changes within the local labour market and the issue of local control of business development.

Ohakune

Ohakune is a small central North Island town with a base population of about 2000, situated at the foot of Mount Ruapehu. Over the last century Ohakune has developed from a settler town with farming and sawmilling as base industries, to a town firmly established on the tourist map. Tourism development began in the late 1950s with the formation of The Mountain Road Association, a local group established to raise funds and undertake volunteer work for the construction of an access road onto Ruapehu's southern slopes. Completed in 1967, the mountain road opened up a new dimension to tourism in Ohakune, providing access to the snow and the possibilities of ski field development and alpine recreation. In 1975 a group of locals formed a company called Ohakune Ski Developments and purchased the facilities until a larger company could be found to run the field. After a series of privatised takeovers, the ski field is today operated by Turoa Holdings, a subsidiary of the New Zealand based company Alex Harvey Industries.

For Ohakune, tourism development came at a time when the local railways, agriculture and timber industries were in decline and an economic alternative was desperately needed. The ski industry has had a marked impact on the economy in recent years with the annual influx of ski field staff and skiers bringing extra demands for accommodation, food, information and entertainment. This has resulted in Ohakune having more than the average small town's share of restaurants, bars, ski and clothing shops. Although many of these businesses are seasonal, they are widely touted to bring valuable income into the area. Indeed, it has been estimated that for every dollar spent on the mountain skiing, eight dollars are spent in Ohakune.

However, ethnographic research conducted in the winter of 1992 clearly shows that with the growth of tourism the lifestyle of Ohakune's small population has changed dramatically (Phillips, 1992). Beneath the veneer of the self-help economic miracle, there is growing discontent and disillusionment among Ohakune residents concerning the huge social impacts and perceived maldistribution of benefits from tourism development.

As research has demonstrated, it is generally believed that one of the most positive effects of tourism development is the generation of income for the resident population. While residents of Ohakune admitted that tourism had revived an otherwise depressed rural economy, many were deeply concerned that this economic benefit was concentrated only in certain sectors of the population. In Ohakune much of the revenue generated from tourism leaves the area through the almost entire monopolisation of ski businesses by outside interests. The small proportion of income that remains in the community appears to benefit only the business sector and those locals who are directly involved. Many residents felt that this maldistribution of benefits caused significant economic hardships for the rest of the population. As many researchers have noted, tourism generates or reinforces inflationary tendencies by putting pressure on local resources. This is very much the case in Ohakune where real estate prices have skyrocketed to the point where many elderly people and young families have been forced to leave the district. Residents further complained that the prices of local goods and services had also been grossly inflated, in light of the influx of the far more affluent tourists.

As tourism has developed in Ohakune, the local community has become increasingly involved in wider national and international networks with a resulting loss of local autonomy. Many locals highlighted this problem, with concerns centring on Ohakune's increasing dependence on external forces, such as changing fashions and economic recession, over which the community has no control. Older informants also expressed concerns that within the community itself tourism has promoted a shift in traditional patterns of social stratification and the distribution of power. They believe that tourism has enhanced the power of money as a criteria for stratification and hence has broken down traditional factors such as age and length of residence in the town. They felt that tourism had widened social disparities and given rise to new kinds of political interests, especially in the increasing power of the business community.

It has been widely documented that an increase in employment levels is a perceived advantage of developing tourism. For some in Ohakune this has come to fruition with a small number of young people gaining employment in ski related businesses. However, most locals complained that this was the exception rather than the rule and they had been unable to gain employment for themselves or their children. It is clear that employment prospects in the Ohakune tourist locality have not improved because labour has been brought in from elsewhere. Informants protested repeatedly that the big ski companies bring in outside labour that they claim to be more 'sophisticated', a situation that has created growing resentment in the community between residents and outside workers. The locals feel that without the promised employment there is little future for young people in Ohakune.

Methven

A remarkably similar picture can be drawn from ethnographic research conducted in the South Island ski town of Methven during 1990 (Campbell, 1991). Methven is smaller than Ohakune, with a base population of around 1000. At the instigation of the local Lions Club a feasibility study was made into the viability of a ski field on nearby Mt Hutt, and by 1973 locals had built a ski road and established the field. As far as self help schemes go it was an unparalleled success. Business advocates visited the village and gave 'pep talks' to locals, extolling the need for services like accommodation to be established in the town. Subsequently, a number of locals did start small ski lodges and accommodation houses and eating places, bars, a nightclub and other facilities sprang up around the town. However, the local involvement in this was not extensive. The local business elite were the only group in the town with sufficient access to finance to enable the kind of expensive development which a ski field requires. The main local contributions were made in the small scale, low profit area of ski lodges, most of which were attached to private dwellings.

The main business developments which occurred were owned and funded by groups and individuals from outside the community. Within two years, the local company which owned the ski-field decided that extensive capital investment was needed to develop and promote it properly and that corporate involvement was necessary. The resulting sale of the field to a large New Zealand company was one of the few decisions which has been widely questioned throughout the community in the ensuing years.

What was left for local people was the prospect of jobs, especially for their children. Again this has been only partially fulfilled. The development of the ski-field has brought a large number of new people into the town, changing the established stratification of what was a rural service town. Even now, twenty years after the establishment of the ski-field, there is a distinct social division between locals and ski folk, with largely autonomous networks of work, leisure and association surrounding the two groups. Consequently this has created a labour market barrier for young local children with jobs in the ski industry being accorded low social status among locals. The result is a serious imbalance in the local supply and demand for labour. This is exemplified by the fact that nearly all local children now either obtain work in traditional industries like agriculture, or primary processing, or leave the district when they finish school. At the same time the ski-field has to import a large workforce every Winter to staff the needs of the field, taking in a large number of unskilled youths from around New Zealand and the rest of the world.

The only point at which the new tourist industries and the local labour force meet successfully is in the area of servicing the local tourist facilities. A number of local women work as room cleaners, waitresses and general staff in the hotels and restaurants around Methven. Basically, the labour market gain for locals has been at the lowest status end of the casual labour force, with the participation of women in menial service tasks being considered an acceptable outcome among locals, while local men refuse to lower themselves to be employed in the ski industry.

The second major issue - that of local control of business - has come to a head in recent years with the sale of the ski-field to a Japanese investment company. This has not greatly pleased the local populace, a situation which was exacerbated by the heavy handed restructuring of the ski season by the new company. Business consultants considered that only peak skiing times were sufficiently profitable to warrant opening the field, with the result that the new owners decided to restrict the operating season of the ski-field. This posed an obvious threat to local service industries. When a delegation of local businesses approached the new company the only agreement that could be reached was that the ski-field would be allowed to remain open beyond the peak period if local businesses underwrote the company against potential losses to the tune of $15,000 per week.

This typifies the situation in which loss of local control over business development has led to serious problems for local business and created considerable ill feeling against a foreign company which is perceived as being largely uninterested in the town's future. As in Ohakune, the basic outcome of Methven's exemplary self-help scheme has been the creation of an investment climate in which few locals can participate and most of the economic spoils leave the area.

The ideology of `self-help' development for rural towns is encouraged by local governments as a means to support economic well-being and social equity in rural areas. The experience of Ohakune and Methven shows that even in areas touted as glowing development successes, `self-help' ideologies facilitate the increasing centralisation of economic activity and resulting deficiencies in government provision of services for rural areas. Development in these towns has not provided the expected levels of income and employment generation for the whole population, with benefits instead either leaving the regions through the penetration of outside business interests, or being concentrated only in certain sectors of the population. When combined with the pervading social and cultural implications of development for these towns, it must be concluded that behind the veneer of the rural `self-help' economic miracle lie economic forces which marginalise `the local' at the same time as they support and justify the present trajectory of economic rationalist policy.

Campbell, H. and Fairweather, J. (1991) "Methven and Mount Somers: report on socio- economic history and current social structure" Discussion Paper No. 128 Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit. Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand

Humphreys, J. (1988) "'Introduction' in Economic Problems and Development Strategies in Australian Country Towns" Urban Policy and Research Vol. 7, No. 3. pp. 128-129

Phillips, E. (1992) Tourism comes to town: the experiences of Ohakune residents Unpublished Honours Dissertation, Department of Social Anthropology, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Robinson, G. (1990) Conflict and change in the countryside, London: Belhaven Press

Sorensen, T. (1988) 'Local employment initiatives in rural towns', in Economic Problems and Development Strategies in Australian Country Towns, Urban Policy and Research. Vol. 7, No 3. pp. 132-134

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