Barbara Kuriger, the newly elected National MP for Taranaki-King Country, was born and bred in Opunake and grew up on a dairy farm. “And it was the last thing I was ever going to do. I had a goal never to marry a dairy farmer,” she says.
“Then I met Louis. He was only ever going to be a dairy farmer, and I’ll tell you what, I’ve really become passionate about the whole industry and agribusiness and rural New Zealand in general.
“So from never going to be a dairy farmer, it’s led me to chairing the LIC council, chairing the governance and ethics committee on the Fonterra Shareholders Council, being a director of Dairy NZ, Primary ITO, Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre, Young Farmers, and the Dairy Women’s Network.
“I’ve really loved my time on the farm and really enjoyed my time working for the industry in various board and trust roles.”
Kuriger said she regarded her election to Parliament as a continuation of the work she has always done for rural and regional people, “but it’s bringing a voice into Wellington which I think we need”.
She worked in an accountant’s office for four years, then married Louis just before she was 20. They had three children before she was 26. They steadily built a farming business too. In 1987 they were Taranaki sharemilkers of the year and a year later bought their first farm, then progressed to multiple farm ownership. Now they are in equity partnerships with their three children.
‘Education and passion gets people to do stuff, not rules and regulations, because you can slap as many rules as you like on people but if you don’t show them how to comply or there isn’t an answer, it doesn’t work.’
The Kurigers have two farms in coastal Taranaki, one at Opunake, the other at Oaonui. Daughter Rachel and her husband Kenneth Short are managing the farms. Younger son, Tony, and his wife Zoe are managing a farm in Woodville. Their eldest son, Craig, is studying business in Wellington.
The Shorts were 2013 Taranaki Sharemilker/Equity Farmers of the Year, and Tony and Zoe Kuriger this year won the Hawke’s Bay-Wairarapa Sharemilker/Equity Farmer award. “So the farms are in good hands, which means I can get out and do what I do,” Kuriger said.
Is there a secret behind the family’s farming successes? “It’s passion,” she replied. “It’s passion and commitment.”
After the family set up the equity partnerships, she and Louis left the farm six years ago to live in New Plymouth. But she is often away from home.
“Home is great but life for me has been around regional New Zealand for years,” she said.
“I’m not a homebody person. I’m never there. I go back to wash, pack, and recuperate and off we go again. So living in different place [when her Parliamentary role takes her to Wellington] won’t be a change of lifestyle for us at all.”
The move from the farm enabled her to focus on her board roles and Louis could get on with contracting and developing for the farms. He still bales the hay, spreads fertiliser and so on “as the support person”.
Through her work for Primary ITO and Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre, Kuriger branched into sheep-and-beef and a bit of horticulture, and as a member of the Venture Taranaki Trust board she became involved in regional development.
“I have a huge interest in people as well which is why I have been involved in the Dairy Women’s Network,” she said.
She was the inaugural Dairy Woman of the Year in 2012.
“It’s just been a passion and I’ve always enjoyed encouraging women to do stuff, and encouraging young farmers to do things in the industry, and I just love it. Rural New Zealand is fantastic.”
Her board and trust work involved her in talking with people who often would say they didn’t have enough representation or political influence in Wellington.
This shaped her decision to stand for Parliament. She is enthused by the prospect of championing rural NZ.
“Yeah, I’m excited. I still have to be elected yet. But I’m going to make that happen and it’s an honour and a privilege to know that people trust you to go to Wellington and represent them well.”
She and Louis have been members of the National Party for several years.
“And I’m stronger than ever of the view that the National Party is the right party for our regional electorates and the economy in general.”
In recent years she has been a party supporter financially but hasn’t been as active because some of her board roles have been apolitical.
She stepped down from some of those posts as soon as she became a candidate.
‘Louis and I are doing about 2000km a week now just looking, learning and listening, and getting to understand the electorate so that when I become the MP I can hit the ground running.’
She has a life coach who reminded her she had written down 10 years ago that one of her future jobs could be as a Member of Parliament.
“So there was an inkling back then it was something I might like to do one day,” she said.
When Shane Ardern stepped down as MP, she weighed up the nature of the vacancy. “It’s a farmer’s electorate and I was determined I was going to be the candidate.”
Four party members put their names forward for the National nomination. She campaigned hard among the delegates to be sure she was the one who came through. Her emphasis was on the need for rural-regional NZ to be strongly represented.
Louis – who has an interest in motor racing – went to Invercargill and back with his race car, but in 12 days she covered 200 more kilometres than him in the electorate campaigning for the support of party delegates.
“I did a lot of miles,” she said. “Louis and I are doing about 2000km a week now just looking, learning and listening, and getting to understand the electorate so that when I become the MP I can hit the ground running.
“We virtually packed up and left home 92 days ago.”
The Kurigers intend buying a small house in Te Awamutu, because the electorate is so long. It stretches from Stratford to the outskirts of Hamilton and embraces Raglan, Kawhia, Te Kuiti, and Otorohanga. It doesn’t quite reach Taumarunui but includes two streets of Ngaruawahia, two streets of Hamilton, and two streets of Waitara. “I’m told the boundary goes through the middle of someone’s house at Te Akau,” she said.
She envisions flying from Wellington to Hamilton and being back in Te Awamutu from there in 20 minutes. From Te Awamutu she would have access within an hour and a half to 70% of the people who live in the electorate.
One feature of the electorate, Kuriger observed is that it doesn’t have high-rise buildings. “although a cement tower at Raglan has been turned into apartments, if you want to call that a high-rise”. There is a set of traffic lights at Horotiu, just inside the electorate. “I think that’s the only set of traffic lights we have,” she said.
“It’s just a great place to be.”
Will she bring particular skills to her Parliamentary job?
“I think I’m a very good communicator,” she said, “and that means listening as well as talking.
“I love to connect people. I love to be able to sit down and listen to an issue and instead of putting stakes in the ground on each side of the discussion try to find a solution that meets somewhere in the middle. I’ve been pretty good at doing that.
“I’ve had a few chair roles. I get on well with people and I guess all my agribusiness experience and board roles have added to my experience.”
She had already thought about what she might say in her maiden speech. It would echo something she told the Taranaki Daily News when she was interviewed about her time as Dairy Woman of the Year.
“I stuck my neck out and said by the year 2020 I don’t want us to be talking about the rural-urban divide,” she said.
“So I know there will be something in that maiden speech about trying to bring urban and rural people together. It’s about economic sustainability and it’s about working together as a country to get the best result.
“There are too many people in this country who are pointing the finger at various industries or people. We have to find solutions and work together. A lot of us do that. But we’ve got to do it better.”
The team player
When Barbara Kuriger became a fellow of the Institute of Directors, she would impress on people: “This does not make me a man. It makes me a fellow, but I’m still a woman.”
And she was not going to apologise for being a fellow either, she said, recalling Labour leader David Cunliffe’s apology for being a man.
When chairing boards or trusts, she was always chair or chairman, she said.
“I never pushed the woman thing too hard. I’m not into funny things like chairperson. It doesn’t do it for me.
“I’m just one of the team and I’ve always been one of the team and I think that’s why I’ve always managed to get as far as I have, because it’s not about me, it’s about the team and what the team can do.”
She intended going into Parliament as a team player, too.
“And whatever options are put in front of me in terms of being on various caucus groups or shadowing somebody, I’m very keen to learn so I can give as much back as I possibly can.”
Taking it in their stride
Water is top of Barbara Kuriger’s list of policy issues that affect dairying.
For dairying or any of natural resource industries, water is the biggie, she said.
Progress was being made on nutrient budgeting and catchment loadings.
But much remained to be done “and we are going to always be talking about water.”
Another matter to be tackled was improving public perceptions of farmers on environmental and animal welfare issues.
“We are all conservationists in the agricultural industry,” Kuriger said.
“We wouldn’t be there if we didn’t care.
“And most farmers now are ensuring the best welfare standards and best practice.”
Her approach is to require an industry to develop its own codes of practice as much as possible
“I’m not a fan of over-regulating people,” she said.
“Education and passion gets people to do stuff, not rules and regulations, because you can slap as many rules as you like on people but if you don’t show them how to comply or there isn’t an answer, it doesn’t work.”
Kuriger cited carbon taxes. “You can talk about carbon taxes until the cows come home but it doesn’t solve the problem. It needs science and research and development.
“Just slapping a carbon tax on one group and giving the money to another group that is perceived to have insufficient money shifts the dollars around but it doesn’t solve a climate change.
“So you can’t tax people on something we don’t have the answers to. You have to put the effort into finding the answers.”
Kuriger acknowledged the need for environmental awareness, but said farmers shouldn’t be required to be over-compliant in comparison with the rest of the world. That would simply make New Zealand uncompetitive.
