For education and training, Hurunui, Central Hawke\u2019s Bay and Southland feature again, as well as areas such as Clutha.<\/p>\n
Eaqub said the data showed some areas would be more exposed to fuel price rises than others. \u201cIt\u2019s all happening piecemeal \u2026 like nurses need help or the fire service needs help, but it\u2019s so specific, and it kind of misses that geographic aspect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I was trying to get at is who are the essential workers, and how far did they travel, where are those people based?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere people can work and live in the same area, that\u2019s awesome. When you can, it\u2019s wonderful. But it\u2019s those people, the nurses who have to drive for 40 minutes or whatever to get to work every day. That is an unbearable cost and burden on those people.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that raised questions about how support could be targeted more precisely.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we get that overlap right? We don\u2019t expect some kind of handout for people to get to work every single day, but people who have to travel for their work and they\u2019re essential, why aren\u2019t they being looked after?\u201d<\/p>\n
Rural essential sectors have double burden, economist says<\/p>\n
Essential workers in many areas had no practical alternative to driving. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
University of Otago economist Murat Ungor agreed that rising fuel prices did not affect regions equally.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross several districts, the data suggest that essential workers in rural and provincial areas drive more than double the distance of their urban counterparts.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, essential workers in the Mackenzie District travel an average of 15.8km, in the Southland District 16.4km, and in Central Otago 13.7km, all predominantly rural districts. In contrast, essential workers in Dunedin City travel 6.3km, in Porirua City 7.1km, and in Hamilton City 7.2km. This means an essential worker in Mackenzie or Southland drives more than twice as far as one in Dunedin.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said rural essential sectors had a double burden.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose most critical to the rural economy, particularly agriculture, have the longest commutes, while urban essential sectors such as health and education have shorter ones. In Southland, agricultural workers commute 16.5km; in Central Otago, 15.8km; and in Waitaki, 16.0km. By comparison, in Dunedin City, healthcare and social assistance employees commute 5.9km, while in Wellington City, education and training employees commute 7.4km.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne may argue, using these comparisons, that the workers putting food on the country\u2019s table are the ones driving the farthest. A fuel or diesel price spike, therefore, directly increases both the cost of food production and the cost of living for the very people who produce it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said essential workers in many areas had no practical alternative to driving, so they were not able to avoid being subject to fuel price volatility.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Gore District, 82% of essential workers in public administration and safety drive \u2026 In Invercargill City, the figure is also 82%. In Hamilton City, 83% of manufacturing workers drive, and in Tauranga City, 81% of transport workers drive. By contrast, in Wellington City, only 27% of essential workers in public administration drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is perhaps the clearest evidence of geographic inequality. An essential worker in Gore or Hamilton has no choice but to pay whatever the pump price is. An essential worker in Wellington, by contrast, has a viable escape hatch through public transport or walking, insulating them from the worst of the price shock<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Wellington workers were not necessarily travelling shorter distances, but they had more options.<\/p>\n Ungor said fuel vulnerability was not just a rural issue but a transport inequality one, shaped by where people worked, how far they travelled and whether they had a realistic alternative.<\/p>\n \u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For education and training, Hurunui, Central Hawke\u2019s Bay and Southland feature again, as well as areas such as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,3105,4480,813,46227,528,2678,22220,185,111,43,139,69,22399,9979,3175,418,1886,812,223,61,17251,4478],"class_list":{"0":"post-362024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-as","9":"tag-data","10":"tag-drive","11":"tag-edmunds","12":"tag-essential","13":"tag-far","14":"tag-fuel","15":"tag-going","16":"tag-is","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-places","22":"tag-right","23":"tag-rural","24":"tag-shows","25":"tag-support","26":"tag-susan","27":"tag-the","28":"tag-to","29":"tag-twice","30":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}