National Party Waitaki electorate candidate Miles Anderson is far from daunted by the vastness of the area, and the distances he will be covering in the lead-up to October’s general election. (4-minute read)

“I like it, I really do. It’s spectacular - it’s beautiful. I like the major points of difference between each little area. I find that diversity really interesting. 

“It’s where I’ve chosen to live and raise my kids. So I think, for me, it’s the best part of the country.”

Miles was raised in Southburn, on the family’s 220-hectare, mostly sheep and crop farm, inland from St Andrews, in South Canterbury. He now runs the farm with his wife Kim, and they raised their three adult children there.

It’s a dry land farm which his great grandfather bought from the New Zealand and Australian Land Company in the 1890s, Miles said. 

“He’d been farming in the area 10 years before that.”

Miles attended Ōamaru’s St Kevin’s College, as did his children, and on leaving high school worked for about 16 months in the Commercial Affairs Division in Christchurch, before gaining a degree in agriculture from Massey University.

After finishing his degree he “happened to fall into a new business” in 1992, which became Animal Scanning Services.

“So a group of farmers had been investigating the possibility of introducing ultrasound scanning for farm animals, and I got offered the job to run the business.”

“That was a very interesting journey, because, one, I had no one to learn from, because it was new to New Zealand. And, two, obviously the business side of things [when] you’re 24.”

He immersed himself in the business, and when the first season finished in September, travelled to Europe.

“While I was over there I tracked down a contractor who’d been doing the same thing as I was doing for two or three years. I just harassed him to give me a job, I worked for him for free, and he taught me the bits that I’d been missing, I guess.”

On his return to New Zealand in 1993, with more knowledge and confidence under his belt, the business “just went nuts”. 

He had also met his Australian wife Kim while in Europe, and they married the following year.

In 1995, the business expanded into South Australia, and that was the focus until 2001, when the couple’s eldest child started school.

“We thought we’ve got to be in one place. So we sold the business in Australia, and it’s still going over there, and at the same time I’d taken over the family farm, so things were getting really busy.”

In 2013, they sold the New Zealand business to a person in Geraldine and he has been focused on farming ever since.

In the interim, Miles became involved in Federated Farmers, and was the Meat & Wool Industry Group chairman from 2017 to 2020. It was this experience which whet his appetite for the possibility of politics.

“I spent a lot of time in Wellington and around the country and that job is all about advocacy really.

“I really enjoyed it, and so I guess for me, I believe an electorate MP is all about advocacy as well, and I think I’ve had experience doing that. I enjoyed it. 

“You don’t always win, but I enjoyed doing it.”

When Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean decided to retire after almost 17 years in the job, Miles decided he had nothing to lose.

“I thought bugger it, I’ll throw my hat in the ring and see where I am.”

While an obvious advocate for farmers, he is also passionate about education, trade, crime, and recognises housing, and health - particularly for those living south of the Waitaki Bridge - are also big issues.

“Obviously, my experience has been in lobbying farming-wise, but I have lots of different interests I guess, around that sort of stuff,” he said.

“Sentiment in farming at the moment is quite negative, and it shouldn’t be - it doesn’t need to be, put it that way. 

“It’s just the amount of legislation and regulation that’s been thrown at farming over the last five years is unprecedented, and the ability of farming to adapt is - you can’t keep up with what’s being asked.”

Extra work that has been required of farmers in the regulatory space is taking a lot of spare time, and is adding to the stress, he said.

“So farming is probably at a turning point at the moment.” 

Also in the farming sector, Miles has been involved with Primary ITO, which facilitates on the job industry training, and setting the standards and course guidelines as a group for NCEA-affiliated vocational courses. 

“So, sort of an apprenticeship,” he said.

“We were finding that a lot of our resource was being spent on teaching these kids to read and write, and basic maths. And they’d got through school with NCEA Level 1, or whatever, so that is scary. Because if you can’t read or write, you’re very limited in what you can do with your life, and nowadays what’s regarded as the most basic job, you need to be able to read and you need to be able to do basic maths.

He saw education as a growing issue, particularly training and retaining teachers, and keeping children engaged.

Also having them, not only ready for tertiary education, but ready to enter a fast-changing job scene.

“There’s going to have to be a bit of crystal ball gazing there I guess, but IT is obviously such a big thing nowadays, and having children and students trained up or educated in those things is really important at the moment.” 

Statistics have shown national literacy and numeracy rates are dropping, which is “unacceptable” and often stems back to parental engagement, Miles said.

“There just seems to be disengagement now at primary and secondary level from parents about what their child, or children, are doing, and that encouragement and expectation from a parental point of view doesn’t exist as much as I’d like.

“ . . . If you could leave school with good reading and comprehension and basic maths, you can teach yourself - you can learn for the rest of your life.”

In the build up to the October 14 election, Miles is planning to get “out and about” in the Waitaki electorate and speak to people about their concerns, as well as communicating National’s policies as they are rolled out.

He encourages voters to get in touch with him, and is available through Facebook, phone and email.