Waikato Business News November/December 2020

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4 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS November/December 2020 ‘The most engaged plan possible’ By RICHARD WALKER The Waikato River and central city will be key to Hamilton City Council as it develops its long-term plan. The council is tackling the plan based on five priorities which came out of extensive public consultation early in the year. Mayor Paula Southgate says her goal was “to make this the most engaged longterm plan [LTP] possible - in other words, to make it as community developed as possible”. “We decided that the ‘why’ is just as important as the ‘what’. If you don't know why you're doing something, if you don't have a vision for what you're trying to achieve, then projects will be thrown in with no kind of rationale.” That saw the council going out to the public at the start of the year. Southgate says about 1000 people contributed, both online and in-person. There was no surprise, she says, when the river and the CBD came through as key themes. “From that, we were able to come up with these five priorities [see sidebar]. Everything that comes to the LTP, we will be saying to our colleagues, how does that fit the ‘why’ for Hamilton? “I think these priorities are easy to understand, they're broad enough to allow for flex and how we get there. And that was what I was about. Shared vision matters. People in Hamilton want to understand what our vision is for the future.” The river is referred to in four of the five priorities, and the city centre is also a focus. Deputy Mayor Geoff Taylor says, having gone through a long-term plan in the previous council, having the five priorities helps give a clearer mandate. “I feel a clearer kind of sense of what we're trying to do, I think this has worked very well for that. On the central city, for example, I love that we're saying a central city where people love to be, because the engagement we've done with the community is telling us they don't just want it to be a place where people work.” Priority one: Shaping a city that’s easy to live in Priority two: Shaping a city where our people thrive Priority three: Shaping a central city where people love to be Priority four: Shaping a fun city with lots to do Priority five: Shaping a green city He says the council is pushing hard on the amenities side. “You want it to be a place where actually people want to live.” He doesn’t see amenity projects, such as a pedestrian bridge, other riverside developments and the regional theatre, as discretionary. “I see the central city as a growth cell, just like Peacocke, just like Rotokauri. And so you need to invest in your growth cell - it's not discretionary, it's absolutely essential.” Southgate points to numerous central city building projects as a vote of confidence which will also contribute to the desire to build up and out from the CBD, rather than focusing only on greenfield development. Taylor says it’s also about planning for areas where there will be high density and others where there won’t, with infill currently making up about half of new building. “It's not controlled, really some of it's not good infill. And it's starting to get to the stage where, you know, it's upsetting a lot of residents, I think.” He says the council is involved in putting together a housing strategy, based on the regional housing initiative, with outcomes including affordability. Out of that, there will be levers for the council to pull, likely to include development contributions (DCs). Southgate says affordability relates to choice in the market. She says the first stage of Te Awa Lakes is set to include apartments in the affordable range. “At the same time, we're working with Kainga Ora and other housing providers to see what we can do to provide transitional homes of the lower value.” The mix of housing is important, Southgate says, as is public transport. Taylor says the future of buses might include demand response, using smaller buses or vans. “You can basically say, come and pick me up and take me into town. And it will pick up a certain number of people on a route and take them into town.” He talks of an “uncomfortable transition” in the central city as driving and parking become more difficult, making public transport crucial. “We are going to have to rev up the public transport system.” Southgate points to major Paula Southgate wants the long-term plan to be as community developed as possible. events as part of Hamilton’s appeal, including the upcoming Six60 concert at Claudelands. “You just see it post-Covid, it's one of the things that people missed the most was the ability to come together and have fun.” Events including Balloons over Waikato and Fieldays were cancelled, but Southgate says the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival is set to go ahead, albeit with a slimmeddown schedule. Southgate says they also want people to thrive in the city, and that includes business. Connectivity will be key - both to Auckland and Tauranga, and within Hamilton. She says that will involve working across boundaries with neighbouring councils, and with Te Waka and others to bring business to the city and surrounds. “Personally I'm thinking, yes, it's great we've got a lot of new business here in Hamilton over the last year, but I want more,” Southgate says. “It's really exciting that we're having people driving down and saying, ‘hey, we'd like to put our factory or our operation right here, can you help us with that?’ My view is, we should be helping them with that in any way we can.” She says when it comes to ease of living, the feedback was that people wanted connectivity, to be able to cycle to work without congestion, and to have access to services like shops, healthcare and parks. “It's about having everything within a scale of neighbourhood, so that you don't necessarily have to drive right the way across the city to get what you need because there's a sense of local communities.” We decided that the ‘why’ is just as important as the ‘what’. If you don’t know why you’re doing something, if you don’t have a vision for what you’re trying to achieve, then projects will be thrown in with no kind of rationale. • The long-term plan will go out for public consultation in March next year. Huge cost of infrastructure Geoff Taylor says having five priorities helps give a clearer mandate. Growth is an ever-present challenge as well as an opportunity, particularly when it comes to the need for expensive infrastructure builds and upgrades - from a new river bridge to Peacocke, to ageing underground pipes. “Now that the government is re-elected, I expect our two MPs to go hard to Wellington and say, ‘Look, in terms of New Zealand Inc, we've got a lot to offer, we're the fastest growing, we're a huge economic hub, we've got those linkages with Tauranga, we've got those linkages with Auckland’,” Southgate says. “That Golden Triangle concept is still strong. And if the Government supports that idea of having a central North Island that's really strong they will need to help us because the cost of infrastructure is huge.”
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS November/December 2020 5 The CELF class of 2020 at their graduation: Back row, from left: Darren Ward, Ben Royfee, Andy Mannering, Brett Maber, Thomas Nabbs and Colin Vette. Front Row: Chelsey Hawthorn, Kristine Clarke, Sharon Lourie, Kate Shirtcliff, Justin White, Bryn Little, Karen Hoskin, Sami Stretton, Tyron Pini and David Slone. Not pictured: Jenny Nand and Matthew Archibald. Community leader honoured Thomas Nabb said the course has the wow factor. By RICHARD WALKER A leadership programme aimed at bringing together the profit and not-for-profit sectors marked its fifth year with an inaugural award at a graduation dinner in November. The CELF Elevate programme, which has now graduated almost 100 participants in total, honoured an alumnus, K’Aute Pasifika chief executive Rachel Karalus, at the event held at the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts. Karalus could not attend on the night to receive the inaugural CELF Alumni Leader of the Year award, but spoke via video of leaving her job as a corporate lawyer to take up her current role. “When I stepped into the role of CEO at K'Aute, I stepped not only into my purpose, but also into my Pacific culture, and identity.” She said there had been self-doubt during what has been a change process at the organisation, but that this had led to personal growth and the development of her own style of leadership, while she also gave credit to those around her for their achievements over the past 12-18 months. The Elevate programme sees Waikato businesses paying for a place on the course for a leader from their own organisation as well as a place for a community organisation member, with about 20 completing the course each year. That means profit and not-for-profit leaders benefit together from the course, which is run by Community and Enterprise Leadership Foundation (CELF) in partnership with University of Waikato Management School. WEL Energy Trust chief executive Raewyn Jones spoke at the graduation dinner about the CELF programme’s purpose, paying tribute to founders Bernie Crosby and David Irving. “They aspired to build future leaders from all walks of life, who could reimagine wealth creation from a social, environmental, cultural and economic perspective. They saw a Waikato with 1000 connected leaders who were driven to leave a positive legacy to succeeding generations. “CELF has already nurtured nearly 100 connected leaders who know their purpose, who are empowered to reimagine what could be, who are well placed to work across sectors, and to build a Waikato that is more inclusive, sustainable and prosperous.” University of Waikato senior deputy vice-chancellor Professor Alister Jones said the evening was an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of all the graduates of the programme. “One of the big things is that these sort of initiatives survive and create vibrancy by an alumni network, and that is absolutely crucial. A series of one-offs have no real impact. And as we continue to build on this programme, then I think this creates a fantastic community.” The programme showed what was possible through a combination of private and philanthropic input and the university, he said. “We can make a real difference in this community, and we can support the business community also to grow. “I think we can all agree that this programme has shown to the community that there's more to business than just making a profit.” One of those graduating, Thomas Nabbs of The Waterboy, thanked the organisers on behalf of the cohort, and said CELF creates connection, learning and growth. “You're constantly surprised on this course, it's always had the wow factor and it's always been mind blowing.” He spoke of being given connection, confidence and a sense of responsibility. “It's taught me more about whakapapa, not only for ourselves, but so we can pass on our teachings in our, in our work in the communities to which we serve.” CELF chief executive Tania Witheford drew analogies between leadership and a regular feature of the programme, a waka trip towards the end of the course that sees the participants paddle on the Waikato River. For stability, the waka are bound together in pairs. “That reminds me of the very fact of how CELF operates. We bring our for profit and our for purpose sectors together, and through that binding we create a stronger foundation, a more sturdy foundation that enables us to travel together.” Travel agency sees positive signs Hamilton travel agency Calder & Lawson is once more recruiting staff, as signs for the future get more promising. That comes at the end of a year when its business plummeted in the space of a week after Covid-19 struck, events were shut down and the border closed. The pandemic’s arrival had followed a period of growth when the company was recruiting new staff, managing director Paul Forward told a meeting of the Waikato branch of the Association of Administrative Professionals NZ. The firm focused on keeping staff employed after Winner of the Orbit World Travel member \door prize Reta Botha (Wise Group) with Calder & Lawson managing director Paul Forward. Without communication there is a void and people make up their own narrative if you don’t communicate, so we were very conscious about that. the virus hit. They worked their contacts, and were able to outsource half of their staff to MSD in a call centre that traced Covid cases, while keeping the other half working in travel. But as the wage subsidy ended they had to make cuts. Calder & Lawson is now recruiting again, however, with the future looking more positive domestically and internationally. Australia is likely to be the second “travel bubble” destination for New Zealanders, following the Cook Islands, and then probably followed in turn by Singapore and then Japan late 2021 and into 2022, Forward told the branch’s Christmas function at Claudelands Grandstand. He is seeing an uplift in AAPNZ Group Management Team, from left, Nancy Berryman (GHD), Antoinette Zuber (Manta5), Melanie Briggs (Waikato Regional Council), Beth Jobin (NZ National Fieldays Society), Charlene Fox (Wintec) mood in the office. “We are confident in the future. Bad times, like good times, don't last forever. So we've got a plan for growth in 2021 and ’22,” he said “The best thing that we've done all year is we are able to pick up the phone to people that we had to let go and say, ‘Would you like to come back?’” Along with a focus on keeping staff, communication was at the core of Calder & Lawson’s response to Covid- 19, both with staff and with clients, he said. “Without communication there is a void and people make up their own narrative if you don't communicate, so we were very conscious about that. “We were up front. We didn't know what was going to happen. But we communicated clearly and consistently so that as we moved through the crisis, our teams knew where we were going.” In the early stages, Calder & Lawson did a lot of modelling, updating its forecasts every 48 hours. Forward said they made their decisions based on worst case scenarios on the basis it was better to go hard and early than to go twice when it came to making tough decisions. That was a challenge, given Kiwis’ naturally optimistic natures, and it meant having the right support network was important. “Having people that you can discuss with, honestly and confidentially, is critical, particularly in those early stages of a crisis,” he said. “I think the things that we learned about Covid and how it affected our business was the type of leadership you need through a crisis is quite different to what you need during everyday events.” • AAPNZ includes personal assistants, executive assistants, office managers, administrators, receptionists, secretaries, accounts and payroll officers in its membership, and meets regularly through the year.
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Waikato Business News November/December 2020

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