Nicola Willis was hosted by Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds yesterday while she visited the city.
In her agenda was a public meeting with members of the community as well a lunch promoted by the Southland Business chamber.
Mrs Willis said what she picked up from her interactions with the community was concerns about what was happening in the farming sector and the rise in the cost of living.
"Clearly a major worry is the state of the economy and the cost of living — people are finding it is really difficult to get ahead as prices are rising faster than wages ...
"Along with that is the concern about what’s happening for our farmers. We know that the sheep sector has had a difficult time and now we learned today that the dairy farmers have had $1 [per kgMS] knocked off their payout."
Southland had a huge potential as it had resources and the capacity to "feed a huge amount of people", Mrs Willis said.
"I think the South has a great future, and it’s abundantly rich and has very smart people. We just need to unlock some of the barriers that have prevented people making the most of those opportunities."
The visit was one day after her slipup in Parliament when she was questioning Finance Minister Grant Robertson about new "belt-tightening" directives issued by the government after what she said was a period of "spraying New Zealanders’ money around".
Willis said "How big is his hole ... " before realising how it could be taken and stopping in her tracks as laughter rang out around the debating chamber.
She had a couple of people come up to her and say not to worry about it.
"I mean, we are all just humans, we do say silly things."
