Waikato Business News May/June 2021

MAY/JUNE VOLUME 29: ISSUE 5 2021 WWW.WBN.CO.NZ FACEBOOK.COM/WAIKATOBUSINESSNEWS 

Call to council: 

Spend 

local 

By RICHARD WALKER 

Hamilton developers are leading the 

way when it comes to supporting local 

businesses, and the council is being urged 

to play its part. 

With an annual procurement 

spend of 

about $420 million, 

the council’s impact is potentially 

profound, but lack of 

data means no one can be sure 

how much is being spent on 

local suppliers. 

The lack of data also makes 

it difficult to measure any possible 

improvement in the wake 

of Covid, when shopping and 

supporting local became a 

mantra and even a campaign. 

Hamilton Central Business 

Association general 

manager Vanessa Williams 

says Union Square and Tristram 

Precinct are two good 

examples of developments 

where the investors are vocal 

in their support of local contractors, 

subcontractors, 

designers and consultants. 

That sees them providing 

significant economic benefits 

as well as validating local businesses’ 

capabilities, she said 

in a presentation to the city’s 

Long-Term Plan. 

“There is currently little 

visibility on Council’s current 

procurement strategy 

and we believe that Council 

could be more transparent in 

their process and selection to 

support local business,” she 

said. “There is an opportunity 

to promote an authentic 

buying process that supports 

a local economy.” 

Williams cites the example 

of Preston in north England 

PICTURED: City councillor Maxine van Oosten in front 

of the colourful mural at the site of the Hillsborough 

pump station upgrade, a project by HEB Construction, 

a national firm which has an office in Hamilton and 

employs locally. Local artist Gemma Yiannoutsos was 

selected by Waikato iwi to create the mural. 

where she says public organisations 

have pooled procurement 

resources and 

are fostering the growth of 

jobs in the area. 

She says it would be good 

to hear more from the council 

about how they are supporting 

local and backing the reputation 

of existing businesses and 

their capability. 

Continued on page 4

2 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS May/June 2021 

Bringing the story of Hospice Waikato to life was an ambitious project and a new 

experience for me. Brett Phillips, the CEO of Print House, gave me the wise guidance I 

needed and made sure the book was completed on time and to a very high standard. 

Brett’s creative ideas and meticulous attention to detail ensured a finished book 

Hospice Waikato Foundation can be very proud of. 

Both the book and the limited edition presentation box are simply superb. 

Sharyn Cawood 

Waikato Hospice Community Foundation 

When you want 

the best result .... you work 

with the best! 

142 Kent Street, Frankton, Hamilton 

Phone: 0800 747 746 Web: phprint.nz

From the editor 

Kia ora koutou. 

This month’s lead 

story comes from a 

conversation with Vanessa 

Williams, general manager of 


Association. Vanessa mentioned 

to me that she had spoken 

about local procurement 

in her submission to the city’s 

long-term plan. She also told 

me about a scheme to boost 

local spending in the northern 

England city of Preston, and 

later sent me a link to an Atlantic 

article on the scheme. 

The gist of it is that Preston 

councillor Matthew Brown, 

faced with cuts to government 

funding under an austerity-driven 

government in 

the wake of the GFC, took a 

different tack. Realising there 

was a substantial collective 

pool of funding available 

through local public organisations 

including the university 

and police, Brown led a move 

to coordinate their spend with a 

view to supporting local businesses. 

Alongside that was a 

drive to help develop co-ops, 

with the aim of increasing 

local capacity. The results have 

been impressive. The Atlantic 

article said that in 2019 UK 

councils received on average 

60 percent less central government 

funding than they did in 

2010. It said the institutions 

that signed up increased how 

much they spent in Preston 

from £38 million in 2012–13 

to £112 million in 2016-17. In 

the same period, the Preston 

council doubled the proportion 

of the money it spent locally to 

28 percent, despite a shrinking 

overall pool of funds. 

I reckon we’ve gone from being 

anonymous as a council from a central 

government perspective, to now one 

where we are recognised by the right 

people for doing the right things. 

Hamilton City Council chief executive 

Richard Briggs Page 9 

This is clearly a model that 

can be applied elsewhere in 

the world, including here in 

the Waikato. 

Enter a pandemic, the call 

to support local, and the 2019 

amendment to the Local Government 

Act to reinstate the four 

wellbeings: social, economic, 

environmental, and cultural. 

Together, those provide an 

imperative for councils to look 

to their procurement spending, 

not just for its value for money 

but also for its ability to support 

local businesses and Māori and 

Pasifika businesses. 

With a total procurement 

spend of about $420 million 

annually, Hamilton City Council 

has heft. Head of procurement 

Igor Magud is clearly 

sympathetic to supporting 

local, while also under pressure 

to get value for money. 

WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS May/June 2021 

But the data is lacking, and 

it’s not possible to quantify the 

council’s impact. 

Having a local procurement 

focus could see a 

requirement for external firms 

that win major contracts to 

have a component of local 

input. It could see a greater 

ability for local firms to tender 

for smaller contracts. It could 

see the council actively trying 

to support consortia of local 

firms to bid for larger contracts. 

Everything is possible, 

and the impact for local businesses 

is potentially profound. 

While Covid has thrown the 

buy local movement into 

relief, this is an approach that 

should outlast the ill effects of 

the pandemic. 

Ngā mihi 

Richard Walker 

“ Where are your worthy rivals? 

They may not even be in your 

industry. But where are your 

worthy rivals? Who are they and 

what are they doing? What can 

you learn from them? ” 

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“ When you cut interest rates to 

record lows it’s designed to 

encourage people to take risks, and 

people are doing that with gusto ” 

ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner 

on the Covid economy Page 13 

The Icehouse 

head of 

growth Liz 

Wotherspoon 

Page 14 

25 Ward Street, Hamilton 

Ph: (07) 838 1333 | Fax: (07) 838 2807 

www.wbn.co.nz 

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027 473 5425 

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Call to council: Spend local 

From page 1 

Change may be coming, but 

it will take time. City councillor 

Maxine van Oosten accepts 

the council is coming from a 

standing start when it comes to 

local and social procurement. 

Van Oosten, who is on a 

working group looking at the 

issue, says for a start there is 

the absence of data. “We don't 

necessarily know from a company 

what level of localism 

they have.” 

Having the data will be key 

to measuring whether future 

measures to support local 

businesses bring about any 

improvement. The solution 

could be as simple as conducting 

regular surveys with existing 

contractors. 

Vanessa Williams says the council could be more transparent 

in its process and selection to support local business. 

Van Oosten thinks attitudes 

have changed with Covid, with 

expectations of job opportunities 

for locals. 

“It's a slow process, sometimes, 

working through council, 

so it’s a bit of a journey.” 

The working group provides 

the opportunity to look 

at the council’s role. “How can 

we advantage local impact, 

social impact? You know, what 

might it look like? It's a chance 

for us to explore what avenues 

are available.” 

In 12 months she wants the 

council to be in a position to 

make changes. “What I'd really 

like to be able to do is to be able 

to form an up-to-date strategy 

around [procurement].” That 

may include changing current 

weightings relating to expertise, 

environmental impact and 

localism. 

Van Oosten says she wants 

local small businesses and 

Māori and Pasifika businesses 

to see they have an opportunity 

to win council contracts. 

“I'd really like to focus 

around how we can advantage 

Hamiltonians, especially as it's 

the ratepayers’ funds that we're 

spending.” 

City head of procurement 

Igor Magud makes the 

point that measuring the 

extent to which individual suppliers 

are local is not a simple 

calculation - does a firm with 

a head office elsewhere but a 

substantial staffing in Hamilton 

count as local, for instance? 

Nevertheless, he says the 

city has an extensive local network 

of suppliers. Of about 

1500 total, 1200 “absolutely” 

would be local. 

“We have extraordinarily 

prescriptive rules about how 

we go to market and how we 

tender. And quite rightly so.” 

The policy follows seven 

principles, of which value 

for money is a “very important” 

one on a list that also 

includes the likes of openness, 

fairness, accountability and 

sustainability. 

The principles do not 

include supporting local, but 

Magud says that is covered 

under the attributes they use 

when procuring. 

Magud says the practice 

from a policy perspective 

hasn’t changed since Covid. 

“However, we are putting forward 

in the upcoming months 

a set of changes or a set of suggestions 

for our leadership and 

for our elected members. 

“We were very conscious, 

however, of our supply chain 

and our vendors through that 

Covid period. So, in practice, 

what we did was really work 

hard to make sure that they 

were paid, that there were no 

issues with payments. And 

actually, we changed our own 

accounts payable process 

during that time, to process 

invoices faster.” 

Van Oosten says the council 

is looking at running 

workshops for businesses and 

contractors to give them an 

understanding about how to 

engage with council to get 

information about upcoming 

projects. 

“We see that as being a 

really enabling way to make 

meaningful connections with 

people.” It may also mean 

council can engage directly 

with businesses to let them 

know when something in their 

field is coming up. She makes 

the point that larger companies 

have greater capacity to do 

some of that groundwork, but 

it is much harder for smaller 

businesses. 

Well-established Hamilton 

printing firm 

Print House says it 

can be difficult to know who 

to deal with at the city council 

when it comes to quoting for 

printed material, and they are 

seeing some jobs being produced 

outside the region which 

they have not had an opportunity 

to bid for. 

They do have some council 

contracts, including a 

long-standing stationery one, 

but have capacity to do far 

more for the council and are at 

a loss to know when and how 

firms from outside the region 

get this opportunity ahead of 

them. 

“We can't work out, from a 

print point of view, their procurement 

protocols, because 

I suppose if we have a single 

gripe, it's that we don't get 

much opportunity to quote for 

their work,” says CEO Brett 

Phillips. “So, how do we get 

that opportunity? 

“There are other companies 

we deal with who use 

other printers as well. Along 

with us, they may have two 

or three preferred suppliers, 

so you at least get an opportunity 

to quote no matter what 

the job is.” Phillips says he 

knows other long-established 

business owners who have 

Continued on page 6 

Business ownership seven times more 

profitable than NZ sharemarket 

Investing by buying a business, rather than 

investing in other people’s businesses on 

the New Zealand sharemarket (NZX50), can 

deliver up to seven times the return. 

That is the key finding from 

data released by ABC 

Business Sales comparing 

average returns (dividends) on 

New Zealand’s stock exchange 

(NZX50) with the country’s 

average returns (profit) for small 

to medium sized businesses 

(SMEs). 

“There’s potentially a seven 

times greater return on offer 

from investing in a business 

compared to investing in the 

NZX50,” says ABC Business 

Sales Waikato owner Greg 

Dunn. 

“The NZX50’s average pretax 

yield (dividend) is 4.2% on 

cash invested whereas the average 

pre-tax yield (profit) for 

New Zealand SMEs equates to 

a 29% return on cash invested – 

effectively a seven-fold return.” 

Greg says the analysis 

excludes any capital gains for 

each asset class, and the pre-tax 

profit for business ownership is 

also based on the business being 

fully managed with limited input 

from the investor. 

“That means we’re comparing 

passive investment scenarios 

as much as we can, so it’s not 

like these are businesses where 

owners are expected to work 12 

hour days or anything like that.” 

Additional supporting factors 

for business ownership in 

this comparison is that effective 

due diligence can mitigate many 

of the risks involved in purchasing 

a private business, and an 

owner’s level of control/management 

in a private business 

investment is much greater than 

the limited influence shareholders 

have over businesses listed 

on the NZX 50. Greg says this is 

the sort of information that could 

be encouraging young New Zealanders 

towards a goal of saving 

to buy their first business instead 

of speculating in the sharemarket. 

“It’s also about helping to 

educate people on the positive 

trends of SME business ownership 

in New Zealand.” 

*The average business price 

in New Zealand is currently 

$703,000 and based on an 

EBITDA average multiplier of 

3.5x the average pre-tax yield 

(profit) equates to a 29% return 

on cash invested. 

The NZX50’s average pre-tax 

yield (dividend) is 4.2% on cash 

invested. The NZX50 average 

EBITDA multiple is 14.5x which 

is significantly higher than the 

3.5x EBITDA average multiple 

for SME businesses. 

The data, sourced from our 

ABC Business Sales’ Market 

Intelligence Report shows that 

the average business sales price 

for SMEs in New Zealand is 

approximately YTD March 

2021 – $703,701. 

This data is derived from 

ABC Business Sales annual 

activity. ABC enjoys a dominant 

30%-40% market share in 

the $0-$5m SME business sales 

market. 

In total there are approximately 

just under 1000 sales per 

year within the entire NZ SME 

business sales ($0-$5m) market. 

In keeping with ABC’s dominant 

share of that market, their averages 

were derived from sales 

volumes of YTD March 2021 

– 380 business sales. The data 

specifically looks at completed 

transactions in the $0-$5m price 

bracket of business sales which 

represents 90% of New Zealand 

businesses. There are 167,000 

NZ businesses designated as 

SMEs with employee numbers 

ranging from 1-19. 

Institutional transactions 

(which can be in the hundreds of 

millions) have not been included 

to prevent a skew in the data. 

10 ways to maximise profit 

for a small business 

Tips supplied by Greg Dunn of 

ABC Business Sales Waikato. 

Business profitability is the 

result of revenue less costs, so 

these are the two levers we can 

pull to improve profits. 

How to increase 

revenue/sales: 

• Find new customers. 

• Provide new services. 

• Increase your service levels 

to existing customers (essentially 

up-sell to your existing 

customer list). 

• Increase conversion rates 

(increasing the proportion of 

sales inquiries into confirmed 

sales) 

• Concentrate on quality 

and service and avoid 

discounting. 

How to decrease costs: 

• Ask suppliers for discounts 

if you pay by cash or it is 

a prompt payment (debt is 

cheap so worth utilising an 

overdraft to promptly pay a 

supplier in return for a discount) 

• Keep your internal systems 

at optimal levels. This will 

reduce any theft/slippage in 

the business. 

• Provide appropriate incentive 

schemes for your staff 

so their pay increases only 

when your profitability 

increases (do NOT align it 

with sales only). 

• Understand your financials 

in detail so you understand 

which products and services 

make the highest margin 

(you do NOT want to spend 

all your time selling products 

that don’t make you profits). 

• Put a system in place that 

makes you review all your 

overhead costs at least quarterly, 

many of your suppliers 

will often have CPI increases 

built in annually and you 

need to be able to make sure 

these increases are debated 

and controlled. 

The overarching point I’d 

say to any business owner is 

great people make great businesses, 

so take the extra time 

when you are recruiting people 

as it will pay off in spades! 

Alongside the comparative 

data ABC has also been spending 

time on how to best utilise 

the data we accumulate as part 

of our day-to-day operations. 35 

years of history in the business 

sales market has provided ABC 

with rich data regarding business 

sales statistics. 

In particular, we have just 

compiled a business multiples 

database that allows all our brokers 

to look at average multiples 

per industry based on thousands 

of transactions over the past 

decades. 

Business multiples are 

still the most commonly used 

method to value a business in 

today’s market; the simplicity of 

using EBITDA/EBIT x industry 

multiple allows this process 

to be easily understood and 

widely used. 

For any business owners 

who want to understand what 

the average business multiple is 

for their industry, please feel free 

to contact me or one of the ABC 

Waikato team. 

We are the industry 

experts and have the data to 

prove it! Feel free to give me 

a call on (027 2930377) or 

Scott (027 4735425) for a no 

obligation chat. 

- Supplied by ABC Business

Digital start-ups boom 

Kiwi digital start-ups have never had it better. 

The provision of new 

technology toolsets by 

big tech companies, 

coupled with more accessible 

venture capital funding 

in New Zealand, means it is 

now easier than ever before to 

fund a digital start-up. 

Waikato software development 

specialist Company-X 

has worked with start-ups, 

alongside government agencies 

and big tech, since it was 

founded by software specialists 

David Hallett and Jeremy 

Hughes in 2012. 

“There’s a whole toolset 

now that enables that,” 

Hughes said. “There’s a lower 

bar to entry and a higher 

chance of success.” 

Building a minimum viable 

product with enough 

features to be usable by the 

client has become a popular 

and efficient way to validate 

an idea. 

“You can completely 

re-factor what you started 

with,” Hughes said. 

“You don’t have to do these 

big think waterfall projects. 

You can start with something 

and if you do it right, that 

sets the basis going forward. 

That completely changed 

the game.” 

Before the advent of cloud 

services, like Amazon Web 

Services, start-ups needed to 

buy a lot of hardware and the 

costs were huge. 

“You had to go and buy or 

lease all this infrastructure so 

that you could put your app 

on it,” Hallett said. 

“Now you can build in a 

serverless environment which 

is elastic.” 

The elasticity of a serverless 

environment makes projects 

scalable, with start-ups 

able to dynamically increase 

and decrease resources based 

on requirements. 

The introduction of follow 

the sun servers, delivering 

minimal lag time, was also a 

game changer. 

You don’t have to 

do these big think 

waterfall projects. 

You can start with 

something and if 

you do it right, that 

sets the basis going 

forward. 

“With Amazon Web Services 

you just click a button 

and say where your application 

is housed to move around 

the globe, so that it’s close to 

where the users are awake,” 

Hughes enthused. 

“Crazy stuff like that was 

not available 10 years ago.” 

“Amazon is the thought 

leader in this space, and 

also the tech leader,” Hallett 

added. “To think they started 

building this to provide the 

infrastructure for their own 

online book store. They 

built this because they saw 

it as necessary for their own 

e-commerce solutions.” 

“Those things have 

enabled a substantially different 

approach all the way up. 

Start-ups can begin without 

much venture capital because 

they don’t need big severs and 

data centres, or have the big 

costs that come with those 

things,” Hughes said. 

The adoption of app stores 

means software no longer 

needs to be shrink-wrapped 

and shipped to a reseller. 

“You used to need a huge 

marketing campaign, but 

now you can publish apps 

in the app store that aren’t 

advertised but are accessible 

to users. You can just tap 

a button on a website and 

the app is on your device,” 

Hallett said. 

“These are technical things 

that are way below the radar 

of investment companies and 

founders, but they have profoundly 

changed the game,” 

Hughes said. “All of that 

reduces your investment, that 

increases the number of people 

that can play, a lot greater 

catchment of innovators to 

actually get as far as getting 

something out there, instead 

of getting stumped on how to 

pull that together.” 

Better access to funding and 

new tools meant the creatives 

of the world could afford to 

explore their ideas earlier. 

BOOMING: Company-X co-founders David Hallett, left, and Jeremy Hughes. 

“University graduates can 

get together and just start 

building an idea and see if it’s 

going to work because they 

have got distribution channels 

and they have got scale 

from all of these services,” 

Hallett said. 

“In the past you rarely saw 

graduates able to do this. It’s 

always they have had a job in 

Silicon Valley or somewhere 

else and they have made some 

money for the company and 

gone back and done it whereas 

now, actually, they can come 

straight out of college, give 

it a crack, and use the knowledge 

they’ve obtained in their 

doctorate.” 

The domestic IT skills 

shortage is amplified by big 

tech sucking up the talent. 

“The likes of Amazon and 

Google have become talent 

vacuums of really high level 

New Zealand graduates,” 

Hughes said. 

“The best ones disappear 

overseas,” Hallett agreed. 

“In the last year, with the 

COVID-19 pandemic, there 

has been a lot more graduates 

sticking around in 

New Zealand. We were augmenting 

the Company-X 

team with skilled migrants, 

whereas now we are hiring 

more local talent.” 

Navigate the 

digital landscape 

with us


Call to council: Spend local 

From page 4 

indicated similar concerns. 

Print House sales manager 

Steve O’Toole says they have 

had frustrating dealings in the 

past with multiple council staff 

often leading nowhere, made 

more difficult by regular turnover 

of their staff. “The staff we 

do get to deal with are always 

very good and appreciate the 

working relationship that we 

have with them, but in overall 

terms it seems the council does 

not have a preference towards 

using local print suppliers.” 

Magud, who has been in 

the job two years, acknowledges 

that for people looking in 

from the outside, the council’s 

procurement rules can appear 

complex. 

However, the council is 

open to feedback and improvement. 

“We genuinely like to 

have access, open and transparent 

and available to the public, 

make sure that they've got good 

access, make sure they know 

the processes of how to bid 

and what [are] the items we’re 

looking for,” he says. 

“Historically, there’s probably 

been room for improvement 

in that respect.” 

As well as the potential 

open day workshop sessions 

for potential suppliers, Magud 

floats the idea of putting an 

information pack out, while 

he is also looking at posting an 

enhanced programme of projects 

on the council website, 

including where to go to bid. 

In the meantime, registering 

for free on the council’s 

Tenderlink portal provides a 

way for potential suppliers to 

both tender for work and keep 

an eye on what’s coming up. 

He says Tenderlink provides 

a transparent chronology for 

the council receiving tenders, 

while it also sends out notifications 

to registered potential 

suppliers of tender activity. 

Phillips says council staff 

he and O’Toole have dealt with 

have always advised them to 

use the Unimarket portal for 

quotes, notifications, receiving 

orders and billing purposes. 

"We have used the Unimarket 

portal for at least 12 years 

and pay a transaction fee based 

on a percentage value of any 

job processed for the council,” 

he says. To his knowledge they 

had not been informed about 

the Tenderlink portal, and he 

suggested it should have been 

presented to potential suppliers 

when it was initiated. 

“It seems rather strange for 

the council to have two systems 

operating for similar procurement 

purposes.” 

Hamilton architect Antanas 

Procuta says one 

potential barrier for 

firms such as his is a system 

of panels of preferred suppliers. 

He says the initiative was 

started by MBIE and is filtering 

down through public funders 

generally including councils 

and, locally, Waikato Local 

Authority Shared Service 

(WLASS). 

On the face of it, the principle 

is simple, and intended to 

aid efficiency of procurement. 

“The intent is that, for every 

project you do, you don't have 

to go to tender to lots of businesses 

and to an open market, 

you've got a limited market.” 

I’d really like to 

focus around how 

we can advantage 

Hamiltonians, 

especially as it’s the 

ratepayers’ funds 

that we’re spending. 

In practice, Procuta says, the 

matrix applied in order to select 

panel members seems to favour 

larger providers with a range of 

capabilities, more often nationals 

or even multinationals. 

His firm spent 16 years 

undertaking projects for 

Waikato University, where 

he says the people doing the 

procuring had their ear to the 

ground and would try out different 

firms for different jobs. 

That saw Paua doing some 

award-winning work for the 

university and yet, when the 

new procurement system was 

brought in three or four years 

ago, Procuta’s firm failed to get 

on the panel despite its prior 

record. 

“The local is definitely disadvantaged, 

and that's really 

unfortunate. And the other 

thing it prevents is the young, 

new firms getting a step in with 

those larger clients. 

“So that's really problematic, 

because younger people 

that have come through the 

universities have new ideas, 

new learnings, they're excited, 

they can do things differently.” 

He cites architect Jørn 

Utzon, who was just 38 when 

he won the competition to 

design the Sydney Opera 

House. 

It can become self-perpetuating, 

with firms excluded 

from the opportunities unable 

to build the capability to then 

make it on to the panels. 

“My concern is that it 

almost seems anti-competitive 

and almost anti-democratic. 

I don't know if that's the right 

phrasing to use, but basically, 

it's using ratepayers’ money, 

taxpayers’ money, to support 

fewer larger firms and the 

smaller local firms miss out.” 

Procuta returned from leading 

Wellington firm Athfield 

Architects to set up a practice 

in his hometown Cambridge, 

because he wanted to contribute 

to his local area, which 

has seen him involved in 

supporting a number of projects 

including Embassy Park 

and the refurbishment of the 

Meteor in Hamilton. 

“That would be the same for 

consultants all over New Zealand. 

If they're local, they'd like 

to be doing work in their local 

area for their community.” 

By comparison, he says, in 

parts of Europe and in Victoria, 

Architect Antanas Procuta says procurement panels can present 

a barrier to local firms, which want to contribute to their 

community. He was involved in the refurbishment of the Meteor. 

Australia, there is a requirement 

for architectural commissions 

above a certain value to 

go to a competition. 

“The beauty of an architectural 

competition is that 

suddenly it's a level playing 

field. We've actually won our 

large projects through design 

competitions, and we've been 

up against some large, large 

firms.” 

Procuta says it was to the 

credit of Waipā District Council 

that when Covid arrived, it 

adopted a policy of trying to 

procure more locally. 

Waipā mayor Jim Mylchreest 

says his council has done 

what it can to support local in 

the Covid era but makes an 

intriguing point around the limits 

of such procurement - essentially 

that the risk for Waipā 

firms, for instance, is that they 

get locked out of other markets. 

Hamilton City Council 

chief executive Richard Briggs, 

who views localness as meaning 

Waikato-wide, says there 

is a challenge around having a 

big enough local pool and the 

question of the council’s role in 

fostering a “rich market”. 

“Do we encourage collaboration, 

because it may be that 

what we want is a multidisciplinary 

outcome but only international 

firms have a multidisciplinary 

outcome, or [do] we 

create and foster and make it 

easy for a cluster of individual 

disciplines?” 

More radically, with recruitment 

difficult at the moment, 

he ponders whether procuring, 

rather than recruiting, could in 

some cases provide an answer. 

“Could we encourage the market 

to respond, could we create 

a market for someone to make 

some money out of it?” 

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7 

“ 

On our course, we look at the many 

aho or strands that are woven together 

to make up the fabric of te ao Māori 

t 

r. 

Māori tikanga increasingly 

important for business 

Learning about tikanga, the protocols and practices of the Māori 

world, is increasingly important for businesses, according to Te 

Wānanga o Aotearoa kaiako (tutor) Tiriana Anderson. 

He teaches TWoA’s Te 

Whāinga o Te Ao Tikanga 

Level 3 Certificate 

programme, at the Apakura 

campus in Te Awamutu. 

“Understanding te ao 

Māori, our world, and knowing 

how to act within it are skills 

modern Kiwi business people 

need to know to operate most 

effectively,” says Tiriana. 

“Māori rituals and tikan- 

ga are an increasingly common 

‘shared space’ between 

all New Zealand cultures and 

learning about tikanga helps 

businesses inhabit that space 

authentically.” 

The 25-year-old has 

strong whakapapa (genealogical) 

links to Waikato iwi, 

affiliating with 

Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti 

Rārua and Waikato on his 

mother’s side, and to Ngāti 

Rereahu, Ngāti Hikairo and 

Ngāti Maniapoto again on his 

father’s. 

He has a passion for teaching 

and inspiring pūrākau (stories), 

kōrero tuku iho (ancestral 

knowledge), whakapapa and te 

ao Māori generally. 

“On our course, we look at 

the many aho or strands that 

are woven together to make up 

the fabric of te ao Māori. 

“People come to know and 

understand some of the Māori 

cultural practices, and can navigate 

them with confidence.” 

These include but are not 

limited to formal pōwhiri 

(welcome rituals), tangihanga 

(funerals), whakatau (general 

welcomes) and karakia 

(prayers). 

Tiriana says tikanga also 

helps businesses establish a 

model or basis for relationships 

in the workplace, and 

with clients and stakeholders, 

particulary Māori. 

“Tikanga allows people to 

define and describe for themselves 

what their purpose is. 

It’s like a road map of what 

teamwork looks like and how 

effective relationships can 

work in any context, and to 

develop relationships through 

a principled approach. 

“In the business scene relationships 

are some of the most 

important things and tikanga 

provides the tools to work out 

where these relationships fit in. 

It’s a bit like a SWOT analysis. 

We encourage businesses 

to consider sending members 

to our tikanga courses to help 

them develop effective relationships 

skills, in their own 

worlds and particularly if they 

engage with te ao Māori.” 

On the rituals of te ao Māori 

– such as pōwhiri and karakia 

– becoming an increasingly 

shared common space for Kiwis, 

Tiriana feels this space is 

boosting mutual understanding 

around reciprocity (mutual obligations 

to each other). 

“For example, in class we 

teach about the aspect of aroha 

(love) involved in recognising 

that we sometimes need to 

change and adjust the way we 

do things to end the distress 

of others or to help them be 

their best.” 

For Māori, the course offers 

a chance to connect in detail 

with te ao Māori and the history 

of tangata whenua, while 

for non-Māori it provides a 

foundational understanding of 

that world and helps people to 

confidently engage with it. 

“For non-Māori, I have a 

saying, that in order for you 

to understand te ao Māori you 

need to see yourself in it. This 

course will help you find your 

place there.” 

The mana of people, the 

land, te reo Māori and the natural 

world are all key “pou” 

or pillars supporting what’s 

taught on the course. 

“These are the four key pou 

of tikanga. They encompass 

the complexity and entirety of 

tikanga Māori,” says Tiriana. 

He sees clear benefits for 

everyone of having more people 

– Māori, Pākehā and other 

ethnicities – understanding and 

incorporating authentic tikanga 

Māori into their lives. 

“It helps them understand 

their place individually and 

shows them the Māori world is 

not only just for Māori. This is 

everyone’s world. 

“It’s also about feeling 

more at home in Aotearoa, 

feeling more at home within 

yourself. Tikanga takes people 

on a journey of reflection, 

and development. You can 

find a spiritual awareness and 

confidence you never knew 

you had, enhanced by an 

understanding you never 

thought existed.” 

Learn about 

Māori culture 

Tikanga is about purpose, practices and protocols, and you’ll 

find it in every aspect of te ao Māori (the Māori world). 

This introductory programme gives you the foundations 

of understanding what tikanga is, why it exists, and how 

it manifests itself in practice. 

Te Whāinga o te Ao Tikanga Level 3 

No fees - apply now 

0800 448 962 

twoa.ac.nz/whainga 

Visit our webpage for detailed information about our programmes. 

All programmes are subject to approval and class numbers. 

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa © 2021 | 194


CONVERSATIONS WITH MIKE NEALE 

OF NAI HARCOURTS HAMILTON 

Seismic ratings for 

commercial buildings. 

Who needs them ? 

- A real estate agent’s 

perspective 

Seismic ratings for commercial and 

industrial buildings are becoming 

increasingly important for both 

building owners and tenants – and also 

those with other financial interests in the 

buildings, such as banks and insurance 

companies. 

What are the legislative requirements? 

In 2018 the government introduced legislation 

for building owners to ensure the percentage 

of New Building Standard (NBS) 

is above 33% of the current building code. 

Seismic Rating Grades 

A Grade 80% - 100% NBS 

B Grade 67% - 79% NBS 

C Grade 34% - 66% NBS 

D Grade 20% - 33% NBS 

E Grade BY ANTANAS PROCUTA 

Antanas Procuta is Principal Architect at Hamilton-based PAUA, 

Procuta Associates Urban + Architecture 

Boldness will 

reap rewards 

Hamilton City Council recently 

adopted their 2021-2051 Central City 

Transformation Plan, a refresh of an 

earlier plan set in 2015. 

The plan looks to put in 

place projects and strategies 

over the next 30 

years to make the city centre 

attractive for investment and 

a better place to work and 

live. The plan is restricted 

to strategies that are immediately 

available to council; 

therefore transport and roading, 

streetscaping, park and 

reserves enhancements, and 

District Plan and Long-Term 

Plan changes. 

The plan acknowledges 

that it is “high-level aspirational”; 

however, being so 

high-level has the potential 

to limit its effectiveness. The 

transformation plan doesn’t 

set a vision on the nature, 

scale or character of what 

the privately-owned built 

environment and commercial 

property might work 

or look like. 

This may be what Councillor 

Ewan Wilson spoke of 

when addressing the adoption 

of the plan at council’s meeting, 

reported as saying “that 

we could have been more 

transformational; that streets 

in the CBD are empty, and 

that some of the north-end city 

centre be bowled and replaced 

with high-density residential”. 

Hamilton is now very 

well-placed to “pause, set and 

engage” to establish the nature 

and character of the city it 

wants to be. At a time when 

much of the CBD between 

London Street and Liverpool 

Street is simply swathes of 

carpark asphalt and low-scale 

buildings of one, perhaps two 

storeys, we have the once-ina-lifetime 

opportunity to significantly 

re-shape the living, 

working and built character, 

not of just that precinct, but 

also of the broader city centre. 

This is especially important 

at a time when Hamilton is 

spreading out into productive 

farmland to build extensive 

suburbs for people to live, 

and requiring substantial new 

roading and infrastructure to 

be built. 

Hamilton is now 

very well-placed 

to “pause, set and 

engage” to establish 

the nature and 

character of the city 

it wants to be. 

A contrasting example is 

that of a place known as Bo01; 

a redevelopment of retired 

docklands in Malmo, Sweden. 

Bo01 is a comprehensive 

precinct of high-quality residential 

and mixed-use design 

initiated in the late 1990s. It is 

considered to be a sustainable 

development model, much 

of its energy is sourced from 

renewable resources, and the 

residents are able to live there 

sustainably. And while the 

architecture rises to five or six 

stories, the design philosophy 

means that over 50 percent of 

the neighbourhood is in green 

space. 

Alongside the focus on 

connecting people with 

nature, lead designer Klas 

Tham predicated the character 

and design of the neighbourhood 

on the walkability of old 

towns, and therefore smaller 

streets and quirks to bring 

a more intimate scale to the 

development. 

Union Square will have pedestrian pathways 

and landscaped courtyards set through it. 

The published Hamilton 

Central City Transformation 

Plan is insufficiently bold, 

visionary, or directive to provide 

an effective guide to 

property owners, developers 

and residents a sense of what 

the city will work or look like, 

or - most importantly - how to 

achieve a concept across the 

private as well as the public 

land ownership. 

Certainly a comprehensive 

design and methodology integrating 

a vision for the private 

land as well as the public 

land is required. The intent 

requires many more people to 

be living and working in the 

city centre to provide the population 

and activation to create 

the vibrancy and vitality 

to which the transformation 

plan aspires. 

Auckland’s Hobsonville 

Point took on such a masterplanning 

exercise for a 

large development of primarily 

high-density residential 

houses, some schools and 

retail, and large-scale greenspaces. 

Although undertaken 

by a range of developers and 

architects, owing to a singular 

overarching development 

plan, the overall neighbourhood 

is cohesive, structured, 

and also has an environmental 

programme behind it. 

Currently under construction 

in Hamilton is Union 

Square built over a half city 

block; a multi-building tower 

development, with pedestrian 

pathways and landscaped 

courtyards set through it. 

Both Hobsonville Point 

and Union Square have a key 

attribute for development, and 

that is a large, singularly-controlled 

parcel of land at the 

outset. The London - Liverpool 

Streets precinct - which 

is a significant land area - is in 

fragments of multiple ownership 

and control. 

This is where Hamilton 

City Council must play a 

significant role to enhance 

the mechanisms and incentives 

for bringing together the 

whole precinct. 

It does require significant 

boldness and collaboration 

amongst politicians, 

landowners and developers, 

but the outcome - especially 

if focussing on the quality 

of the development outcomes 

and sustainability - 

will also be significant.


9 

The candid Richard Briggs 

‘Driven, strategic, relentless’: 

Livewire boss bowing out 


Seven years ago, Richard Briggs was 

appointed chief executive of Hamilton 

City Council. 

He had two years as 

council CFO under his 

belt when Barry Harris 

- “one of the best chief executives 

in the country for local 

government” - stepped down in 

2014. 

Briggs wasn’t so keen on 

working for an unknown quantity, 

so he threw his hat in the 

ring and got the job. 

The announcement didn’t 

quite go as he had expected. 

Mayor Julie Hardaker called 

him into her office to give him 

the good news and then called 

a meeting to tell senior leadership. 

“She told them and they 

thought she was joking. 'Oh 

yeah, who's the other one? Who 

is it going to be?’ And I was just 

sitting there thinking, none of 

these guys believe it.” 

It’s the kind of story Briggs 

is happy to tell about himself. 

He is, as he deadpanned to 

Linda Topp when she singled 

him out from the crowd at this 

year’s Bucket List Banquet, 

the chief entertainment officer 

of Hamilton City Council. For 

once, the effervescent Topp, 

who clearly didn’t know him, 

seemed bemused. 

Apparently, that’s a term 

bestowed on him by his staff, 

rather than a self-description, 

but anyone who has seen him 

in action will testify that he can 

appear to veer alarmingly off 

script. During interviews, he 

talks at warp speed, sometimes 

in multiple directions at once. 

With that comes a candour 

that is unusual among bureaucrats, 

but it is allied to an astuteness 

which has seen him win 

the confidence of successive 

councillors and mayors. 

Not that it has been all plain 

sailing. His worst moment in 

the job came less than a year 

after his appointment. 

Hamilton zoo keeper Sam 

Kudeweh was fatally mauled 

by a Sumatran tiger on September 

20, 2015. 

“That was really hard. There 

was huge national and international 

pressure, a staff member 

who was loved had passed 

away. I knew her through 

engagement as a staff member 

previously. You know - national 

pressure, family was hurting, 

the zoo community was hurting, 

the media onslaught…” 

He describes it as an “absolute 

low”. “It was a stressful 

time and some staff are still 

impacted by that.” 

Briggs’ concern for staff 

shone through again when 

Covid hit, and he was quick to 

put the focus on employees’ 

wellbeing. 

I reckon we've 

gone from being 

anonymous as 

a council from a 

central government 

perspective, to now 

one where we are 

recognised by the 

right people. 

“The team did an amazing 

job during Covid. We probably 

stood up our [leadership] 

team quicker than anyone in 

the country because of our high 

performance programme, and 

high trust.” He says the elected 

members were also quick to 

respond. “That was quite a 

proud moment.” 

The high performance programme 

is about connecting 

people with their community, 

he says. “Our purpose is to 

improve the wellbeing of Hamiltonians. 

It is really simple.” 

He says they have partnered 

with a third partner in the programme 

which wraps together 

strategy, culture, leadership and 

mindset in performance management. 

“I've religiously driven it 

into the organisation for the last 

few years and it's bred results. I 

reckon we've gone from being 

anonymous as a council from 

a central government perspective, 

to now one where we are 

recognised by the right people 

for doing the right things, and 

we're getting a fair cut of the 

coin for doing so.” 

That’s not necessarily 

readily quantifiable, but from 

Briggs’ point of view, the key 

is that they are credible and 

push hard, and he cites the government’s 

HIF (Housing Infrastructure 

Fund) investment in 

Peacocke. “We were recognised 

at that stage as being progressive, 

influential, we got the biggest 

chunk of change.” 

It seems possible the livewire 

Briggs is both uplifting and 

exhausting as a boss. He is 

certainly sure of himself and his 

approach. 

“I've got a mindset of being 

driven, strategic and relentless. 

The relentless part is I never 

walk past an opportunity to 

enable someone to be the best 

version of themselves. So I've 

got this theory whereby I do 

everything I can, for someone 

to be the best they can be, 

recognised for being the best 

they can be on a national stage 

or whatever, to the extent that 

they become entirely marketable 

outside the council, but I 

create an environment where 

they enjoy the job so much they 

never want to leave. That's what 

I'm trying to do.” 

With councils facing reform 

of three waters, the replacement 

of the RMA and a review of 

the local body structure itself, 

Briggs wants to see the city 

get “front and centre”. When it 

comes to three waters, he says 

they are working with a consortium 

of local authorities and are 

ahead of central Government in 

some aspects. He has his team 

looking at whether there is a 

bigger opportunity for shared 

services with other councils, 

and even nationally on procurement 

and innovation. 

“We try to influence the best 

outcome. That might well be a 

Waikato-Bay of Plenty solution,” 

he says. “The other aspect 

that I've pushed with central 

Government myself is to what 

extent can we think nationally 

on some of these things. And if 

you've got a national body, you 

can start having a conversation 

about where you place infrastructure 

that's boundaryless.” 

Experience care as it 

should be, experience 

the Braemar way. 

Braemar Hospital is one of the largest 

private surgical hospitals in New Zealand, 

and it’s here in Hamilton. 

With more than 100 world class specialists, 

10 state-of-the-art operating rooms, 84 beds 

including 32 private rooms, at Braemar 

you’ll receive the highest level of care. 

Choose the very best. 

Choose Braemar. 

That comes with ensuring 

the community voice is still 

heard. “And we've done a lot of 

that, in terms of the engagement 

model, really getting engaged 

with our community.” 

An inventive campaign to 

boost the vote lifted the turnout 

slightly at the last city elections. 

Since then, the council has also 

fielded a record 5674 submissions 

to its long-term plan. As 

well as the numbers, Briggs 

is equally pleased to see the 

diversity of people attending 

hearings and submitting, which 

included video submissions. 

“Definitely the engagement 

space has been great,” he says. 

“The challenge is to find 

ways to work with the community. 

I'm working on a proposal 

right now to think about how 

we can really leverage flexible 

working. 

“What I want to do is go to 

the market and say, hey, look, 

I've got no sacred cows, what 

I want to do is make sure that 

I've got a really safe and productive 

environment for my 

team - what does it look like? 

So rather than going to the market, 

and asking for, you know, 

a building to be built, or this 

building to be re-kitted or the 

status quo, I'm going to put the 

problem statement. 

“And I'm not taking a 

bricks and mortar approach. I 

don't have any particular view 

whether we should own this 

building or not.” 

But come October it will 

be time for Briggs, a 

chartered accountant, to 

find a new role. Council rules 

mean they must advertise his 

position this year, and that’s an 

opportune time to step down, he 

says. “I could have done a year 

or two more, I think I've got 

more things I want to achieve. 

But I don't think it's fair [on 

council] to have that sort of an 

interruption.” 

Aged 47, he is seeking fresh 

challenges, with a return to 

the commercial sector likely 

as well as playing a part in the 

community sector - definitely 

in Hamilton, the “cool city” he 

is passionate about. “Getting 

back in the commercial world, 

in some form or another, would 

be quite enjoyable.” 

He has loved the chief executive 

role, though. “I love seeing 

change in the community 

and knowing my guys are doing 

such a great job.” 

He has also enjoyed working 

with elected members, 

saying he takes a forthright 

approach with them. “One of 

my ‘superpowers’ is I can, for 

the most part, understand what 

their intent is. And so that has 

probably given me the ability 

to be quite resilient when they 

can be a little bit hot-headed at 

times as they're driving a really 

passionate point. 

“It's just good fun. You 

know, we've got 27, 28 business 

units, really complex, it is really 

interesting. It's really exciting 

work we do and most people 

come here because they really 

want to make a difference.” 

Sometimes it’s the little 

things, like a staff member who 

gave a bike to a homeless man 

whose bike had broken down. 

Or watching a City Safe worker 

helping an old gent across the 

road into his car. Or the dog 

control woman who drove to 

Napier in her own time to return 

a lost dog to its owners. 

“Those stories are cool, 

you know, we're talking about 

improving the well being of 

Hamiltonians, there's individuals 

making a difference.” 

braemarhospital.co.nz


Welcome to 

Sleepyhead 

The Chamber welcomed the 

news of the successful rezoning 

approval of the giant Sleepyhead 

development at Ohinewai recently. 

While there has been opposition 

to the development, the Chamber 

has staunchly promoted the 

project with local councils as we believe 

it will make a significant economic contribution 

firstly as a development and 

then ongoing as a major employer in the 

Waikato. This sort of development that we 

are beginning to see emerge in the Waikato 

should be embraced for the economic 

prosperity that it creates. 

Sleepyhead’s vision is to create a 

genuine community in a beautiful setting 

for people who want an affordable, 

quality home, a stable job and a thriving 

community they can be part of. This 

is a long-term development that will 

add value to the Waikato District, to 

Ohinewai, Huntly and Te Kauwhata and 

the surrounding region. 

After 90 years in Auckland, it is a 

big change for Sleepyhead but one that 

brings an existing, proven and thriving 

industry to the district and the potential 

for over 2500 jobs. When completed 

the development will see a fully master-planned, 

178-hectare mixed-use urban 

development located around 7km 

north of Huntly on State Highway 1 and 

the North Island Main Trunk Railway. 

It will comprise a 100,000sqm 

By Don Good, Waikato Chamber 

of Commerce executive director 

Sleepyhead factory (on a site of 37ha), 

which will bring together all of The 

Comfort Group’s Auckland-based production 

and warehousing operations and 

will employ more than 1000 staff once 

fully operational. Additionally, the development 

will provide for a further 

106,000sqm of general industrial activity 

(on a further site area of 26ha) with 

an estimated 32,400sqm of commercial 

gross floor area (8.7ha) and potential 

for a further 1600 jobs. The residential 

component proposes 1100 homes. 

The beauty of the Ohinewai site it 

that it will drive the economic development 

of an undeveloped region that is 

strategically situated on an arterial route 

in The Golden Triangle between Auckland, 

Hamilton and Tauranga. Just imagine 

what new industries would happen 

if the Expressway extended all the way 

through to Tauranga. In the meantime, 

do join us in welcoming Sleepyhead to 

the Mighty Waikato. 

Waitomo Group to 

open flagship service 

centre at Ruakura 

Superhub 

Waitomo Group will have the first service 

and retail offering for the Ruakura 

Superhub currently under development on 

the eastern boundary of Hamilton. 

Waikato-based 

fuel distributor 

Waitomo Group 

has signed an agreement with 

TGH to develop a fullservice, 

flagship site accessible 

off the Waikato Expressway 

via the Ruakura interchange. 

The 1.6 hectare site will 

incorporate a Waitomo Fuel 

Stop with alternative energy 

options including hydrogen 

refuelling and EV charging 

stations as well as commercial 

truck refuelling lanes. 

A touch-free carwash, two 

quick-service restaurants, a 

café and a convenience store 

will round out the offerings. 

The new site is planned to 

be open by mid-2022. 

Jimmy Ormsby, Managing 

Director of Waitomo 

Group, said the business is 

proud and honoured to be 

the first retail/service tenant 

to sign for the Ruakura 

Superhub. 

“This partnership with 

TGH to develop our flagship 

Waitomo site at Ruakura 

cements our commitment to 

the region we call home and 

builds on our rapid growth in 

the market over the last five 

years. We’re proud, and honoured, 

to work with our partners 

at TGH to help bring the 

vision of the Ruakura Superhub 

to reality. The service centre 

development will reflect 

the scale and quality expected 

from a project of national significance,” 

Ormsby said. 

Waitomo was founded in 

Te Kuiti in 1947 by Desmond 

Ormsby, and is now managed 

and owned by the third generation 

of the Ormsby family. 

The company will mark its 

75th anniversary next year. 

The company is committed 

to disrupting the New Zealand 

fuel market with competitive 

choice and pricing through its 

network of more than 80 Fuel 

Stops and Diesel Stops stretching 

from Paihia to Dunedin. 

“We are delighted to welcome 

Waitomo Group to 

Ruakura Superhub. With 

almost 75 years on the clock, 

we are confident they know 

and understand locals and 

visitors to our region. It is 

great to see a locally-founded 

company take advantage of 

the opportunities provided by 

Ruakura and to deliver the 

kind of excellent experiences 

we aspire to provide,” said 

Chris Joblin, Chief Executive 

of TGH. 

He said confirmation of 

the new service centre added 

to the momentum around 

Ruakura Superhub. Extensive 

earthworks, construction of 

local connecting roads and 

leasing negotiations are now 

in progress right across the 

first 92-hectare first stage of 

the 480 hectare-site. 

Ruakura is amongst New 

Zealand’s largest developments, 

spanning logistics, 

industrial, retail and residential 

development areas. 

It will be anchored by a 

30-hectare inland port, with 

the first 17-hectare stage now 

in development by TGH and 

Port of Tauranga, in a 50/50 

joint venture announced earlier 

this year. 

The inland port will be serviced 

by high-capacity rail and 

roading infrastructure, with 

the East Coast main trunk rail 

line running along the Port’s 

northern boundary and the 

new Waikato Expressway on 

the eastern boundary. Initially, 

rail services will be provided 

by the existing MetroPort 

trains running between Auckland 

and Tauranga. 

The Ruakura precinct 

is estimated to accommodate 

6,000-12,000 jobs once 

it is fully developed. The 

Ruakura Superhub inland 

port and adjoining logistics 

hub is on track to open in 

early/mid 2022. 

Sealed with a handshake: Jimmy Ormsby and Chris Joblin.


11 

A new way of 

working - Digital 

Workspaces are 

enhancing the 

modern workplace 

Josh Davies - Managing Director, Richie Jenkins - Director - Sales, 

John Calland - Director - Operations, Marty Thompson - Head of Platform 

There’s also the expectation 

from employees 

to have the ability to 

work and collaborate from 

anywhere, and at any time. 

This is, in essence, what 

is commonly referred to as a 

“modern workplace”, which 

is a term used to define organisations 

who recognise digital 

collaboration, technology and 

tools as the way of the future. 

Yes, the world has 

changed, and if you weren’t 

on the modern workplace bus 

before COVID, you certainly 

are now. So what’s changed 

aside from significant worker 

dislocation? 

Yes, the world has 

changed, and if 

you weren’t on the 

modern workplace 

bus before COVID, 

you certainly are 

now. So what’s 

changed aside from 

significant worker 

dislocation? 

Sure, you have access 

to everything, but do you 

know how to get to it? and 

do you remember all those 

login details to various applications 

and websites? 

Have you ever just given up 

or called IT support? You’re 

not alone. 

On average, kiwi businesses 

lose 1 hour per employee, 

per week on technology 

related disruption and 

this is the new challenge for 

organisations, with so many 

apps, files and tools, how do 

I ensure my people get to it 

efficiently? 

And now that our teams 

It’s a fact that as a business you will continue to adopt and 

rely more on technology, whether it’s a new application, tool, 

or digitising and automating a previously manual process to 

make teams more productive and deliver better services to 

your customers. 

can work from anywhere, 

how do we engage, train and 

help them to adopt new systems 

or tools? 

Enter the digital workspace. 

A new concept changing 

IT delivery, focusing on 

the way we work, by providing 

a single “pane of glass” 

view to access all of your 

relevant applications and data 

with the ability to collaborate 

in one place, configured by 

role to standardise the way 

you work, offering greater 

efficiency and productivity 

using single sign on to all 

your apps through Microsoft 

365 integration. 

Imagine, onboarding a 

new team member by simply 

sending them the link to 

their workspace where they 

have everything they need in 

one place and an intuitive user-interface 

providing structure 

and simplicity. No more 

questions of 

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Time to grow up, not out 


A leading property organisation has 

welcomed Hamilton City Council’s boost 

for urban design, while warning developer 

discontent is likely to persist. 

As part of its 10 year 

plan, the council has 

overhauled its developer 

contribution (DC) settings 

while also proposing an average 

8.9 percent rates rise. 

Among a raft of changes, 

builds in the CBD of six storeys 

and higher are set to gain 

a full contribution remission, 

dropping to 50 percent for 

other buildings. The remissions 

depend on engagement with 

the urban design panel. 

Elsewhere, industrial, commercial 

and retail contributions 

will be capped citywide, while 

growth cells Peacocke, Rotokauri 

and Ruakura continue 

to attract substantially higher 

residential contributions than 

elsewhere. 

In the absence of the muchtouted 

special purpose vehicles 

to take some of the burden, and 

with high debt levels, the city 

is constrained in what it can do. 

Thomas Gibbons, who is on 

the Property Council Waikato 

regional executive, emphasises 

the city has engaged with his 

membership-based organisation 

over the changes. 

“There have been some 

robust discussions about the 

background to those and the 

evidence base for them, and 

the implications of them. From 

a Property Council point of 

view, I think there has certainly 

been a degree of positive 

engagement.” 

However, he says there 

remains a view that the city’s 

DCs are still too high, and 

a current court challenge to 

Hamilton City Council may be 

just the tip of the iceberg when 

it comes to developer dissatisfaction. 

It is really important 

for Hamilton city to 

get the balance right 

around community 

interest and the 

interest of being a 

city that is open to 

growth. 

“Among the overall development 

community, there has 

continued to be a lot of angst 

around DCs,” he says. 

“There are still many examples 

where people are dismayed 

or concerned or even 

outraged at the level of DCs in 

Hamilton.” 

City Council chief executive 

Richard Briggs acknowledges 

the concerns, but says part of 

the issue is the difficulty in flexing 

around the District Plan, 

with development requirements 

potentially changing 

years later, after infrastructure 

has already begun in an area. 

“It is really complex, and 

that leads to lack of transparency, 

and I can understand 

why the developers find that a 

challenge. But ultimately, I've 

got confidence in the model.” 

When it comes to the caps 

for non-residential development 

contributions around the 

city, Gibbons says they are not 

enough. 

“There's really a lot of work 

to do around having a simpler 

policy that is more enabling of 

development.” 

Gibbons says his organisation 

supports remissions 

as a way of encouraging further 

development, though it 

remains to be seen whether the 

six storey limit will encourage 

buildings of that height. The 

Property Council is also very 

supportive of the boosted role 

for the urban design panel. 

“We've been aiming for 

some time to have the design 

panel to have a more empowered 

role. The experience of 

those who go through the 

urban design panel is almost 

always positive. It really does 

achieve good things for development.” 

Gibbons also sees an 

important role for the panel 

throughout the city as intensification 

continues. 

“There is a real need for 

more housing and in particular 

more affordable housing. 

Balanced against that are some 

of the community expectations 

around how that development 

will happen and what it will 

look like,” he says. 

“Principles are more 

important than the rulebook, 

and one of the things we'd 

really like to see there is the 

ability to use the design panel 

Intensification and good design can go hand in hand. 

Thomas Gibbons has 

welcomed the urban design 

panel’s greater role. 

to allow greater levels of departure 

from the strict rules of the 

district plan where good design 

outcomes are created. 

“An example which comes 

to mind is there are some sites 

in which you might see three 

sets of duplexes on them, 

because the district plan clearly 

allows for duplexes. Now, it 

might actually be much better 

from a design point of view 

to have two sets of triplexes, 

that might look a lot better. 

But that's harder to do. And 

therefore, a lot of the time people 

work to the basics of what 

is in the plan, and to some 

extent council planners do as 

well.” 

Gibbons says it’s important 

that “the right voices” are 

heard. “I think it's very easy for 

local government to get tied up 

with community resistance to 

certain proposals, for various 

reasons,” he says. 

“I think it is unfortunate at 

times that we don't give a voice 

to those families who will be 

moving into the new houses 

that are put up. Every duplex 

unit is a new home for someone, 

and it might be a home 

that they're actually very proud 

of, even if the neighbours don't 

like it.” 

Growing concerns around 

carving up productive farmland 

for housing and around 

urban sprawl present barriers to 

future greenfield development. 

Gibbons says regional 

sprawl can also become an 

issue as DC costs are passed on 

to home buyers, raising house 

prices in the city and potentially 

driving drift to smaller 

towns, in turn putting pressure 

on the roading system and 

commuter times. 

That could be exacerbated 

by the “easy alternatives” to 

Hamilton when it comes to 

commercial and industrial 

developments. “From an individual 

developer or business 

owner point of view, some of 

these decisions [to go out of 

Hamilton] become almost a 

no-brainer. From a regional 

point of view, it enhances those 

issues of sprawl and so on, and 

isn't always the right answer.” 

Briggs accepts there have 

been examples of companies 

choosing to go outside the city, 

citing Visy setting up at Hamilton 

Airport. He says that is 

partly around the level of service 

the city provides, including 

a tertiary level wastewater 

treatment plant and water plant. 

“We provide that for everyone 

in the city. Not all businesses 

want that. And if they 

don't want it, they're not necessarily 

prepared to pay for it.” 

Gibbons acknowledges 

DCs have been a hot topic in a 

number of high growth areas, 

including Auckland. “At the 

same time, I think Property 

Council’s view over a number 

of years has been that Hamilton 

city has taken a very assertive 

view on DCs. It's acknowledged 

that reflects the pace of 

growth and the difficulties of 

working out how to fund that 

growth. But Property Council 

has taken the view that 

even though there has been 

good engagement, there have 

still been some real concerns 

about the impact of Hamilton's 

DC policy in the sense it's 

making Hamilton something 

of an outlier. 

“It is really important for 

Hamilton city to get the balance 

right around community interest 

and the interest of being a 

city that is open to growth.” 

Come in, SPV 

Growth doesn’t come 

cheap, with infrastructure 

a major 

cost for councils. One 

potential solution often 

mentioned is a special purpose 

vehicle (SPV), similar 

to a targeted rate, whereby 

the cost of development 

is taken off the city’s 

balance sheet. 

It is among the solutions 

proposed by the Property 

Council, with Thomas Gibbons 

saying his organisation 

has pushed over a number of 

years for the city to be more 

innovative in how it funds 

infrastructure. 

“The obvious examples 

are targeted rates, use of 

special purpose vehicles, in 

some situations public-private 

partnership. So there 

are those tools there and 

particularly in a place like 

Hamilton, that has high growth, 

they need to be used.” 

Milldale in Auckland is the 

prime example of an SPV, with 

ACC stumping up with longterm 

finance and house buyers 

paying an annual $1000 levy 

over 30 years. Hamilton has 

yet to get a similar arrangement 

off the ground, though council 

chief executive Richard Briggs 

says it’s not alone in that. 

He says managing risk tolerance 

requires work but Hamilton 

is “right up the list” in 

terms of councils that are most 

prepared to do something. 

“We've done our numbers, 

and we know what it looks like. 

We know how we can do it.” 

Peacocke is a prime area 

where a “conversation” is being 

held. “I suggest that holdups 

aren't at our end, it's more of a 

case of getting everyone in the 

right position.” 

Optimising your digital strategy 

A 

digital strategy needs 

to be part of a business’s 

DNA to succeed, 

was my key message 

at May’s Waikato Business 

Summit. 

I was asked to join a 

panel discussion with Chooice 

founder Sarah Colcord, 

TECH TALK 

> BY DAVID HALLETT 

David Hallett is a co-founder and director of Waikato 

Agile software development specialist Company-X. 

PlayBooks founder and chief 

executive Greg Sheehan and 

associate director of the University 

of Waikato Artificial 

Intelligence Unit Jannat Maqbool 

to discuss optimising 

your digital strategy. 

Having an embedded digital 

strategy meant we were 

prepared when Covid-19 

hit. On day one of lockdown 

we had every team member 

working remotely and nearly 

everyone participating in a 

videoconference, with only 

those asleep in different time 

zones missing! 

Despite the Covid-19 

lockdowns in 2020, we were 

able to achieve significant 

growth at Company-X. 

Our well-defined digital 

strategy is the lifeblood of 

Company-X and gave us the 

ability to continue with business-as-usual 

through very 

uncertain times. 

We’re very clear on where 

our digital strategy fits within 

our business and how it 

enables business growth. 

We’ve been using technology 

to improve our business 

performance at Company-X 

since we founded in 2012. Our 

digital strategy has enabled 

us to work remotely with 

international and domestic 

clients for many years. 

The best digital strategy 

in the world won’t make 

any difference without the 

human touch. 

A great digital 

strategy 

implemented by the 

best team is the 

secret to business 

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We operate a close-knit 

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A great digital strategy 

implemented by the 

best team is the secret to 

business success.


13 

Grant Robertson at Union Square: “It’s 

busy in the Waikato at the moment.” 

Luxury vehicles and the 

state of the economy 

A year ago, ANZ chief economist Sharon 

Zollner told the Waikato Business Summit: 

“It’s getting really scary out there.” 

This year, she told them: 

“Lamborghinis are sold 

out.” During that 15 

month period, after staring at the 

brink, New Zealand has returned 

to something approaching 

normality, albeit with a major 

impact on tourism. The Reserve 

Bank was picking a deflationary 

shock as recently as November, 

when it thought people and 

machinery would be underutilised 

in the style of the GFC, 

Zollner said. By February, “they 

had decided it’s more like 2014, 

which was halfway through a 

business cycle”. 

“It is very clear this is a much 

less deflationary shock than the 

Global Financial Crisis was. 

It's more like a war in that it's 

had really negative impacts on 

supply as well as on demand, 

but central banks globally have 

just doubled down when that 

became apparent.” 

When asked, households 

say this is not a good time to be 

buying a major household item. 

However, they are actually out 

there “buying cars and e-bikes 

and jetskis” - along with Lamborghinis. 

“We are seeing a bit of a 

‘risk, schmisk’ attitude out there 

- not just in New Zealand, globally 

- towards investment and 

that's what happens when you 

cut interest rates to record lows. 

It's designed to encourage people 

to take risks, and people are 

doing that with gusto.” 

In comments echoed later by 

Finance Minister Grant Robertson, 

she said firms are saying 

they’ve got the same problems 

as before Covid, including not 

being able to find staff. 

“Covid appears to have 

brought about the living wage 

on a number of occasions,” she 

said, citing an anecdote about a 

hotel paying $27 an hour rather 

than $20 in order to get staff. 

The labour market is tight and, 

because the economy is distorted, 

workers tend not to be 

in the right places or with the 

right skills. “You can’t turn an 

unemployed barista from Te 

Anau into a plumber in Napier 

quickly.” 

She said the Government is 

doing what it can to help, including 

the apprenticeship scheme, 

but school leavers have a range 

of options. “So we would expect 

more wage inflation than that 

unemployment rate would normally 

suggest.” 

Meanwhile, house prices 

“absolutely” could fall, Zollner 

said. “The house price index 

is up 26.7 percent in the last 

12 months and this is in a year 

when migration is zero and 

household incomes have taken a 

hit, so you've got to question the 

sustainability or sanity of that.” 

The housing investment tax 

changes raise the odds on investors 

selling when mortgage rates 

rise. “The incentive to borrow 

up to the hilt if you are an investor 

has now reduced significantly. 

We have seen investors 

step back a little bit in the auctions 

but not much sign that millennials 

are stepping back. They 

are, I think, a bit brainwashed by 

this story that New Zealand has 

a housing shortage and is never 

going to fix it, which is a valid 

viewpoint, but they've incorrectly 

taken from that that means 

house prices can't fall and they'll 

just keep going up, and that is 

not true.” 

Supply constraints are affecting 

the construction industry, 

which accounts for about 10 

percent of employment, she told 

the audience at Wintec’s Atrium. 

“The construction cost inflation 

is going to be spectacular over 

the next six months.” 

Robertson, whose trip to 

Hamilton also took in 

visits to Ruakura and 

Union Square, addressed the 

audience the week following the 

Budget, which he said continued 

to be based on the wellbeing 

approach. 

“One of the good pieces of 

news out of the Budget is that 

New Zealand's wellbeing overall 

survived pretty well through 

Covid. And I think one of the 

significant reasons for that was 

our stocks of social capital, the 

trust there was in one another, 

and the trust that we have in 

institutions of governance.” 

He said wellbeing was still 

significantly challenged among 

some New Zealanders, particularly 

sole parents, the unemployed 

and those with sickness 

The Waikato Business Summit audience is all attention at Wintec’s Atrium 

Sharon Zollner presents at the summit 

or disability. Barriers around 

health and education continue to 

be an issue for Māori and Pacific 

people. 

“What we do know is that 

New Zealand has come through 

Covid-19 remarkably well, 

when we compare ourselves 

to the rest of the world.” That 

includes unemployment lower 

than the OECD and Australia. 

“It is an interesting time to 

now be here when people are 

back to their pre-Covid number 

one issue they raised with me, 

which is access to skilled labour. 

That's not where we thought we 

would be a year ago; we thought 

we'd be having a discussion 

about who they'd lay off rather 

than who they could take on.” 

He said in the face of volatility, 

the Government would 

take a balanced approach to the 

management of the economy. 

“Investing money, making sure 

that we're putting it where it's 

needed the most, but also being 

aware that we want to bring our 

levels of debt back down, and 

we want to work our way back 

into surplus, in order to manage 

our way through that uncertainty 

and volatility. 

“I do think and I've been saying 

this publicly over the last few 

weeks that we do need a conversation 

in New Zealand about 

public debt, and what public 

debt is for.” He said New Zealand 

had traditionally targeted 

a much lower percentage of net 

core crown debt than the current 

levels. “And that is because 

New Zealand is a small country, 

we're prone to natural disasters, 

we're prone to the effects of economic 

shocks. But when we are 

investing in the productive economy, 

when we are investing in 

the infrastructure that we need, 

managing that against our very 

strong balance sheet is okay, so 

long as the trend continues to be 

downward.” 

Robertson said the result of 

changes in housing, including 

$3.8 billion towards infrastructure 

and changes to interest 

deductibility, would see house 

price inflation drop to around 1 

percent in a year. 

“New Zealand needs to get 

itself away from growth being 

based on selling houses to each 

other and the growing population, 

and this Budget is set up to 

try to do that.” 

In a return to the theme of 

the year since the last Business 

Summit, Robertson said nothing 

is more important this year 

than rolling out the Covid vaccination 

programme. “And so 

here's my plea to you as business 

owners and those who lead in 

your business. Please be a part 

of that vaccination programme, 

support your workers to be vaccinated. 

From July onwards, 

we're moving into the mass 

vaccination process. That will 

require a high level of cooperation 

and collaboration. We have 

never done a campaign like this 

before. And so we are very, very 

keen to get your help in making 

sure it happens.” 

Robertson also visited Ruakura 

and office building Union 

Square, which is rapidly taking 

shape in central Hamilton, 

and commented on the level 

of activity in the region. “It’s 

pretty busy in the Waikato at 

the moment, which is a fantastic 

sign for this region and for 

Hamilton as well, to see so much 

activity, so much interest in both 

the good quality developments 

here in the CBD, but also in the 

surrounding areas.”


Clifford Buchler, Liz Wotherspoon and Jon Calder field questions at the forum. 

Leadership in a 

time of upheaval 

The disruption caused by Covid is not 

going away, The Icehouse head of growth 

Liz Wotherspoon told a Waikato business 

audience at a forum held in Hamilton. 

“What we realise right now 

is that uncertainty equals 

reality. Change is not 

going to slow down. The sense 

of instability that we felt over 

the last little while is going 

to characterise the rest of our 

lives.” 

What that means from a 

leadership perspective is that 

communication becomes 

“incredibly important”, 

she said. 

And that is a two-way process, 

about listening as well as 

talking, Tompkins Wake chief 

executive Jon Calder told the 

forum, which had a focus on 

leadership and was organised 

by The Icehouse customer 

growth partner Maryse Dinan. 

Calder told the audience 

Covid has helped his 

firm improve its levels of 

transparency. 

“It's about communication, 

probably ramped up to 

another level again. Something 

that I think Covid 

taught us really well was to 

listen to our people.” 

They conducted regular 

surveys during lockdown to 

gauge where staff were at. 

“It was very much focused 

on, what do they need from us? 

And overwhelmingly, it was 

that they wanted clear, regular 

communication and effectively 

just reassurance that we were 

going to be okay.” 

Wotherspoon said The Icehouse 

similarly increased the 

frequency of its surveys, while 

also having more one-on-one 

conversations. 

She said during the last year 

communication with their own 

people, their customers and 

suppliers was important. 

“But you had to be comfortable 

with the fact that you 

didn't necessarily have all the 

answers. So when you were 

communicating, it wasn't communicating 

that you had certainty 

about what was coming, 

or what was going to happen.” 

Mitre 10 Mega Hamilton 

chief executive Clifford 

Reality check 

Ask Your Team chief 

executive Chris 

O’Reilly says his company 

conducted a heartening 

survey around workplace trends 

and the response to Covid. 

“One of the surveys that we 

did was about 26,000 employees, 

we saw an initial fantastic 

response around flexibility, 

autonomy and trust.” 

But it didn’t last. O’Reilly, 

who was speaking at the 

Waikato Business Summit, 

says employees have since 

reported seeing that dwindle 

quite significantly “like it was a 

temporary blip”. 

At the same time, he said it 

was interesting the number of 

people who said they had seen 

productivity rise as a result of 

the flexibility. 

“We need to challenge ourselves, 

we need to be thinking 

differently,” he said. “It is a new 

world, it is changing, it's only 

going to change more. And just 

the fact is that the way that we 

used to think, the way that we 

used to operate, the way that we 

used to lead, the way that we 

used to engage and partner with 

our clients and our people most 

Maryse Dinan 

Buchler, like Calder a former 

Waikato Business Awards 

Chief Executive of the Year, 

also stressed the value of transparency 

in his presentation. 

That sees all staff at the Te 

Rapa and Ruakura stores having 

up to date information on 

sales, growth, profit and budget. 

“I really believe if you 

want to motivate a team, how 

do you motivate them without 

any information? 

“It's quite a difficult thing to 

get across to most companies, 

because they want to keep 

everything closed and quiet.” 

Buchler said great business 

results come from having a 

motivated team. “And how I 

importantly, has changed. 

“But we're not seeing that 

change. We're not seeing that 

change in leadership, we're not 

seeing that change in organisations. 

And that's flowing 

through to a really high level of 

frustration, which converts to 

lack of productivity and lack of 

opportunities.” 

The answer is simple, he 

said. It’s to change from hierarchical 

command control, 

to empowering people. That 

means getting to know staff 

personally. 

It also means “getting 

to know what they're actually 

thinking, creating a safe 

environment or mechanism 

or processes for them to 

actually tell the truth”. 

believe you help with motivation 

is clarity.” 

He cited his own absence 

from work for two months 

with a health issue. “I got back 

to work - there was nothing for 

me to do. 

“I think that's one of the 

best rewards for having a motivated 

team. And a lot of them 

did it for themselves, they saw 

opportunities, a lot of them did 

it for me, a lot of them did it for 

their colleagues.” 

He said he saw exactly the 

same happen when Covid hit. 

“Motivation is definitely one 

of the key fundamentals. And 

the rewards are absolutely 

magnificent.” 

Wotherspoon echoed his 

experience: “Great leadership 

is not about what happens 

when you're there, it's 

about what happens when 

you're not.” 

I think that's one of 

the best rewards for 

having a motivated 

team. And a lot 

of them did it for 

themselves, they saw 

opportunities, a lot of 

them did it for me, a 

lot of them did it for 

their colleagues. 

He questioned the extent to 

which New Zealanders hold 

honest conversations, and said 

leaders should be hungry for 

feedback. 

“It's really hard to get that 

feedback as a leader if you're 

doing what you can. And when 

you get that feedback, it can be 

quite heart breaking. But it's the 

truth. 

“So be hungry for feedback 

and try to take feedback 

as a good. Unless somebody 

is being absolutely vitriolic, 

all feedback is a gift. 

It's either reinforcing and appreciating 

something you're doing 

or it's giving you the opportunity 

to improve on something. 

So embrace it, even though it's 

not easy.” 

Buchler also said leadership 

requires clear accountability, 

which requires measurable 

goals. 

“I really believe that something 

that's fundamentally 

missing in a lot of retailers 

that I've been with - the 

goals are not clear, and more 

Leadership tips 

Liz Wotherspoon on learning from others: 

“Where are your worthy rivals? They may not even 

be in your industry. But where are your worthy 

rivals? Who are they and what are they doing? What 

can you learn from them? What can you steal from 

them - and I don't mean literally stealing from them, 

but what could you do in your organisation that 

they're doing and you'd be a better organisation? 

That's worth leaders spending some time thinking 

about.” 

Jon Calder on acknowledging your limits: 

“I'm very much big picture, blue sky. And what I 

know I need around me is a team that can help fill in 

the detail and then execute. One of the things that 

I find most liberating is I can run off a list of all the 

things I'm no good at. The flip side is I know what I 

am really good at. And I've got a good team around 

me. I've got 24 partners who I lean on to help me 

with the stuff I'm not good at. You can get really 

comfortable with the stuff you're not good at, as well 

as the stuff you are good at. I think that's what really 

takes you forward.” 

Clifford Buchler on networking: 

importantly, they are not 

measurable.” 

• The Icehouse has worked 

with more than 5000 SME 

owner-managers and leaders 

since 2001 through 

learning programmes, 

workshops and coaching. 

“I ended up in New Zealand through a network 

and my career since I've been here has all been 

around networks. If you want me to go run for 

cover it's about psychometric testing. I really find 

them intimidating, I don't enjoy them. So therefore 

I believe in networking. I also believe you should 

network within the company. Networking politically 

- again, I think it's good to know what your political 

landscape is, you have to make the effort. And 

the one that I really believe has helped a lot is 

international networking. So when it comes to 

leadership, for example, one of the people I worked 

with and still keep in touch with is from Brazil. 

He's one of the finest leaders I've ever met, in my 

opinion. Networking internationally, I think, gives you 

a taste of a foreign culture. It gives you a taste for 

foreign ideas. And I think it helps you as a person, 

as a leader, to just think of it wider than your own 

environment.”


Employers - start 

your engines! 

From 1 November, the new Accredited Employer Work Visa 

(AEWV) replaces six existing work visa categories, and all 

employers employing migrant workers on an AEWV must first 

become accredited by Immigration NZ. 

15 

Foster’s Ross Pacey and Leonard Gardner with the Chamber’s Paula Sutton and Don Good. 

Fosters to sponsor 

Waikato Chamber 

Business Awards 

This new work visa places 

more responsibility on 

employers for the visa 

process, and the well-being, of 

their migrant workers. This new 

regime is intended to simplify 

the work visa process and to 

minimise migrant exploitation 

by some employers. 

So what do employers actually 

need to know at this time? 

• From 1 November every 

employer who wishes to 

employ a migrant worker 

on an AEWV will first need 

to be accredited by INZ. 

The AEWV will replace 

the Essential Skills and 

Work-to-residence work 

visas (and others) 

• Other work visas, such those 

issued under post-study and 

partnership policies, are not 

impacted by these changes 

and do not need employers 

to be accredited 

• The new accreditation will 

comprise three streams – 

standard, high volume (for 

6 or more AEWV workers) 

and labour hire/franchise 

accreditation. Initial accreditation 

will be given for 12 

months 

• The AEWV process 

involves three stages – 

the employer check, the 

labour market check and 

Richard Howard 

the migrant worker check 

• The salary threshold for 

work-to-residence visa 

applications under the new 

regime will be set at twice the 

median wage (expected to be 

around $112,000pa) 

At this time employers 

just need to be aware of these 

changes and to ensure they 

maintain compliant employment 

practices – and to proactively 

manage their migrant worker’s 

visa situations. 

Currently the NZ labour 

market is experiencing significant 

pressure and competition 

for skills, and this situation is 

expected to be exacerbated as 

Australian employers experiencing 

similar pressures extend 

their reach across the Tasman. 

Migrant workers face significant 

challenges with the suspension 

of the skilled migrant residence 

category and the recently 

announced reset of immigration 

policies. The retention of skilled 

migrant staff is significantly 

dependent on their long-term 

visa security and it is in employers’ 

best interests to proactively 

assist and support their migrant 

workers now by: 

• Transitioning eligible 

workers onto 30-month 

work-to-residence work 

visas to secure their pathway 

to future residence. 

Eligible workers employed 

by an existing INZ accredited 

employer must be paid 

at least $79,560 pa. Workers 

may also qualify for a 

long-term skills shortage 

work-to-residence work visa 

• Applying now for new 

long-term work visas for 

employees who have work 

visas expiring in the next 12 

months. 

• Undertake a Pathways 

Immigration Audit of your 

migrant workers to assess 

their visa situation and future 

visa options 

Employers, you do not have 

to hit the accelerator pedal just 

yet, but it is advisable to take this 

current opportunity to secure 

your team for the long term – 

and be in a position to win many 

future Bathurst 1000’s! 

The Waikato Chamber of Commerce has announced Foster 

Construction Group as the new primary sponsor for the 

upcoming 2021 Business Awards which have opened for entry. 

The Chamber has long 

enjoyed a positive and 

productive relationship 

with Fosters who were previously 

the category sponsor of 

the Community Contribution 

Award. Fosters will now be 

the sponsor for the Supreme 

Award category and the event 

will be renamed the Waikato 

Chamber of Commerce Business 

Awards supported by 

Foster Construction Group. 

Chamber CEO Don Good 

is excited by the new sponsorship. 

“We have always 

worked closely with Fosters 

and we think the relationship 

between them and ourselves 

is one that is beneficial for the 

Waikato region. Fosters has 

long been a vocal supporter 

of smaller businesses looking 

to make an impact in the business 

world and we are thrilled 

to have them on board as the 

primary sponsor for the Business 

Awards.” 

Founded in 1973 by Graham 

Foster and Graham 

Mallett, Foster Construction 

Group has been responsible 

for bringing some of the most 

prominent public and private 

commercial construction projects 

in the Waikato to life. 

These include Claudelands 

Events Centre, Deloitte 

House, Genesis Energy offices 

and the current Union Square 

project. The Foster Construction 

Group have always prioritised 

healthy communities 

and are aware of their responsibility 

in the Waikato community 

as a major employer. 

This sponsorship is the next 

iteration of Fosters’ continued 

investment into the Waikato 

region. 

“Fosters’ purpose is Great 

Communities through Strong 

Foundation,” says Leonard 

Gardner, CEO of the Foster 

Construction Group. 

We have always 

worked closely with 

Fosters and we think 

the relationship 

between them and 

ourselves is one that 

is beneficial for the 

Waikato region. 

“One of the foundations of 

our community is the strength 

of Waikato business. When 

presented with the opportunity 

to serve the Waikato 

Chamber of Commerce Business 

Awards with sponsorship, 

we saw the alignment with 

Fosters’ purpose. As a community, 

we need to celebrate 

success, and the awards do 

this well.” 

This brings an end to the 

Awards sponsorship agreement 

between the Waikato 

Chamber of Commerce and 

Westpac NZ. Westpac have 

been the primary sponsor of 

the Business Awards for the 

past 21 years and together 

with the Waikato Chamber 

of Commerce have built a 

strong reputation for the 

Awards to celebrate business 

achievement in the 

Waikato community. 

“We are immensely grateful 

to Westpac for the relationship 

we have had with 

them over the years and for 

their assistance in growing 

the Business Awards into the 

event that it is today,” Good 

says. “It is always sad when 

a great partnership comes to 

an end but at the same time 

exciting for the potential 

for new growth that Fosters 

will bring to the Awards. We 

thank Westpac for their past 

investment in the Awards, 

and as we have several events 

planned with Westpac, they 

will continue to be active 

investors in our community.” 

The Awards are open to 

any business based in the 

Waikato, and there are categories 

for small to large businesses, 

in a range of fields 

including Service Excellence, 

Marketing & Social 

Media, and Community Contribution. 

Information and 

instructions on how to enter 

the Awards can be found on 

the Waikato Chamber of 

Commerce website. 

Level 2 

586 Victoria Street 

Hamilton 3204 

Level 3 

50 Manners Street 

Wellington 6011 

07 834 9222 

enquiries@pathwaysnz.com 

pathwaysnz.com


Jean McKenzie says adults 

are increasingly realising the 

importance of education. 

Tutoring business 

sees stellar growth 

A Te Awamutu tutoring business is seeing huge growth because 

of Covid, with an increasing number of adult students looking to 

their future. 

While much of the 

Covid recovery talk 

has been around 

industries such as construction 

and primary production, 

Impact Tutoring founder Jean 

McKenzie says in the calendar 

year to January 2021 

her business has more than 

doubled in size, with a significant 

boost from an online 

offering. 

Adult students in some 

cases have been made redundant, 

but also include those 

still in work and seeking to 

broaden their options. 

“A lot of adults are realising 

how important education 

is - that education is king, 

basically,” McKenzie says. 

“So they are wanting 

to protect themselves by 

gaining more knowledge 

and more qualifications. 

“The interesting thing 

I find is it doesn't matter 

whether they're in Taupō, 

it doesn't matter whether 

they're in Canterbury, it 

doesn't matter whether 

they're in Dunedin, the conversations 

are still the same.” 

Often the adult learners 

need to refresh their memory 

in things like how to write an 

essay. 

“For example, a month or 

so ago, I had a guy call us 

from the outskirts of Canterbury. 

He lives in a rural 

area. He's doing online university 

work, but he had a 

compulsory maths paper that 

for him was really difficult 

to manage. 

“So he contacted us and I 

was able to put him in touch 

with my tutor in Kerikeri.” 

Impact Tutoring now has 

five online tutors as well as 

those teaching face to face in 

its Te Awamutu hub, four of 

whom also tutor online. 

Covid has also shown 

many parents the advantages 

of online learning. 

“The kids themselves 

have always been comfortable 

with technology. 

And parents were forced 

to step aside, because that 

was the only way forward. 

And so what they've found is 

that it's actually a really good 

way to learn, that online 

learning is actually accessible, 

and a way around lots of 

obstacles that were in place 

before.” 

In some cases students in 

Te Awamutu are choosing 

to do their learning online 

because of the convenience. 

The change, accelerated 

by Covid, has also 

seen the business growth 

model change, with a shift 

from setting up branches 

KNOWLEDGE CAN 

BE TAUGHT, BUT 

VALUES CAN’T BE 

SO THAT’S WHAT 

I’M ALWAYS ON THE 

LOOKOUT FOR. 

outside Te Awamutu to 

recruiting “outstanding” 

online tutors. 

McKenzie has a range of 

tutors, from university students 

to qualified teachers 

and says the key when she is 

employing is the applicant’s 

values. 

“Knowledge can be 

taught, but values can’t be so 

that's what I'm always on the 

lookout for.” 

Impact Tutoring is also 

developing online modules 

for families that may struggle 

to pay the cost of the face-toface 

learning. 

“Education just opens 

doors for people. That's our 

focus all the time.” 

• Impact Tutoring was 

a finalist in the Innovation 

and Adaptation 

category of the 

Waipā Networks Business 

Awards. 

Climate-related disclosures, 

are you ready to report? 

Late last year the Government 

announced 

its intent to make climate-related 

financial disclosures 

mandatory for all 

publicly listed companies 

and large financial services 

organisations. 

PEOPLE AND CULTURE 

> BY VICTORIA ASHPLANT 

Victoria Ashplant is a PwC Director based in the Waikato office 

Email: victoria.j.ashplant@pwc.com 

This includes large insurers, 

banks, non-bank deposit 

takers and investment managers. 

According to the Ministry 

for the Environment the 

purpose of mandatory climate-related 

disclosures is to: 

• ensure that the effects of 

climate change are routinely 

considered in business, 

investment, lending 

and insurance underwriting 

decisions; 

• help climate reporting 

entities better demonstrate 

responsibility and foresight 

in their consideration 

of climate issues; and 

• lead to more efficient allocation 

of capital, and help 

smooth the transition to 

a more sustainable, low 

emissions economy. 

What will be required? 

The Bill is currently before 

Parliament but impacted 

organisations could be 

required to make disclosures 

as early as 2023. 

The External Reporting 

Board (XRB) is responsible 

for developing the reporting 

standards which are 

expected to closely align with 

the recommendations from 

the Task Force on Climate-related 

Financial Disclosures 

(TCFD). 

In order to meet the disclosure 

requirements being 

proposed, businesses will 

have to demonstrate how they 

embed environmental and 

social practices through their 

strategies and risk frameworks 

into the core of board 

level decision making. 

These disclosure requirements 

are likely to change 

the way companies evaluate 

business decisions, including 

the way they gather information 

and present business 

cases or investment returns. 

What can be done now? 

Even as the proposed disclosure 

requirements are developed, 

there is still an obligation 

for businesses to think 

about this now. 

Organisations must still 

meet requirements under 

existing NZ IFRS standards 

(such as the impact of 

environmental risk on your 

impairment testing under NZ 

IAS 36, provisions NZ IAS 

37, such as cost of remediating 

environmental damage 

and if your business model 

presents risk of being unsustainable, 

going concern). 

What will the proposed 

changes mean? 

When they come into force, 

these reporting requirements 

will drive greater transparency 

around climate change 

related risks and opportunities, 

helping markets to more 

accurately value climate 

risk, and supporting New 

Zealand’s transition to a low 

emissions future. 

+++++++ 

+++++++ 

+++++++ 

+++++++ 

+++++++ 

Procuta Associates 

Urban + Architecture 

Contact us 07 839 6521 

www.pauaarchitects.co.nz


17 

Fast 50 entries open 

Marketing the Mighty 

Waikato proposition 

TELLING WAIKATO’S STORY 

> BY JASON DAWSON 

Chief Executive, 

Hamilton & Waikato Tourism 

The Deloitte Fast 50, the 

index that ranks fast-growing 

Kiwi companies, is open for 

entries until July 30. The 2021 

results will be announced on 

September 30. The Fast 50 

programme, now in its 21st 

year, includes the national 

Deloitte Fast 50 index and 

associated regional awards 

and the Master of Growth 

index recognising established 

businesses achieving longer 

term sustained growth. For 

more information, visit 

www.fast50.co.nz 

Heritage on show 

Destination marketing involves more than just ‘selling’ the 

region as a place to visit and have a short break. 

Marketing a region 

involves everyone 

– from word-ofmouth 

recommendations, 

locals talking up the place 

they call home, celebrating 

our award-winning businesses, 

sectors and hospitality 

providers, telling our 

Waikato food story proudly, 

and positioning our region on 

its strengths in the primary, 

medical, tech, agri-tech, science, 

education, food production, 

tourism and construction 

sectors. 

Tourism and events are 

seen as a ‘window or gateway’ 

into a region’s DNA. 

If you have an exceptional 

visitor experience or attend 

an inspirational event, you 

are more likely to return to 

visit again, plus eventually 

live, study or invest in the 

Waikato. 

The marketing mix has 

also changed from mass marketing 

to trade, business or 

consumers, through to more 

personalised, co-curated and 

geo-centric channels. 

It’s also more than traditional 

advertising in print 

or broadcast media, where 

digital advertising now leads 

from outdoor and indoor 

channels through to direct on 

your mobile phone. 

However, the good thing 

which is still common across 

all marketing channels is 

that content is king, which is 

where we focus a lot of our 

efforts to support our other 

destination marketing efforts. 

The May edition of Air 

New Zealand’s Kia Ora 

magazine is a good example 

where we successfully hosted 

a travel writer for three 

days which led to an eightpage 

feature on the Mighty 


This not only provides an 

independent view of their 

experience and what makes 

this region so special in their 

own words – it also has a high 

conversion rate to inspire visitors 

to Waikato. 

Working with the producers 

of The Apprentice 

Aotearoa to bring the 

teams to Hamilton for a 

tourism marketing challenge 

didn’t happen by 

accident either. 

There was clear intent in 

working behind-the-scenes 

to ensure that Hamilton was 

shown in a positive light on 

national television and the 

audience has been quick to 

share their thoughts as well! 

We have been working 

tirelessly with a range of 

media organisations like 

travel bloggers, podcast producers, 

social influencers and 

magazines like Cuisine and 

House & Garden, to make the 

Mighty Waikato top-of-mind 

in travel destination choices. 

This has been more important 

than ever to reposition 

the region in the domestic 

market. 

We are also rolling 

the successful Ambassador 

programme which was 

first piloted in Kirikiriroa 

Hamilton, and is now 

being developed for five 

other regions across 

the Waikato. 

The three-hour training 

programme helps expand 

residents’ local knowledge 

by providing simple tools to 

create positive and memorable 

experiences for leisure, 

business and family visitors. 

These include the history, 

unique stories and 

colourful characters who 

helped shape the region. 

To find out more and register 

for the next Kirikiriroa 

Hamilton course, visit www. 

waikatonz.com/ambassador 

Lastly, we all have a part 

to play to be proud and promote 

our community, businesses, 

events and people. 

If you have a story to 

share or something to celebrate, 

make sure you let us 

know. Remember, we live in 

an amazing part of the world 

and the rest of New Zealand 

needs to be reminded about 

how special it is. 

A collection of heritage 

Hamilton photos are being 

given an interactive twist in 

a window display in Garden 

Place. The photos in the 


Association window respond 

to onlookers’ movement 

and have been installed as 

part of the CBD activation 

programme. The association 

put together the Storybox 

display in partnership with 

the Heritage section of the 

Hamilton libraries which 

provided over 500 images of 

the city. 

Hamilton’s heritage is on display 

“ It is a pleasure to announce that we are 

expanding our business and with your 

continuous support we are very excited 

by the growth and success that we have 

achieved in this nine short years. 

The years of service has been a privilege and would 

like to take this opportunity in announcing that we 

are moving into our purpose-built Office by the end of 

October 2021. 

This is a celebration of what we have been able to 

accomplish together - with the focus on quality and 

trust, we have built enduring relationships with our 

clients and we will very much strive to continue 

providing you with a better service. 

We will advise you as we get closer to our move, until 

then business remains as usual with Office Location, 

Phone Contact Numbers, Record Drop-off Box etc 

remain unchanged. 

Singh & Associates Limited provides the 

expertise you need to grow your business 

to next level. 

A personal & professional service to assist 

with every successful outcome. 

Moving October 2021 

OUR NEW HOME 

145 Ossie James Drive, 

Titanium Park, Hamilton. 

singhandassociates.co.nz | 07 843 6004


Investors return 

to market 

Lodge Real Estate reports 

that the agency’s number 

of Hamilton home sales 

rose marginally during May. 

As investors re-entered the 

market the median price in 

the city eased, as investors 

tend to buy in lower price 

brackets. Lodge Real 

Estate Managing Director, 

Jeremy O’Rourke, said 

almost all properties that 

went to auction in May 

sold under the hammer or 

soon after, belying talk of a 

cooling market. 

201ha for 

development 

Waipā District Council has 

designated 201 hectares 

of industrial land for future 

development to keep up 

with projected population 

growth and demand. 

Council’s district growth 

and regulatory group 

manager Wayne Allan 

said there was a steady 

flow of enquiries for new 

commercial and industrial 

land. “Through the Waipā 

2050 Growth Strategy, 

we have provision for 

201 hectares of industrial 

zoning, located in Hautapu 

and Te Awamutu. We 

anticipate these new 

industrial areas will be 

quickly snapped up by 

developers when they 

are made available for 

purchase.” 

The council has also 

received its latest credit 

rating. Fitch Ratings has 

assigned Waipā a local 

currency Issuer Default 

Rating (IDR) of ‘AA-‘ with a 

stable outlook and a shortterm 

local currency IDR of 

‘F1+’. This is the council’s 

fourth review and in all 

four the ratings have been 

retained. 

Boost for Te Huia 

Waikato Regional Council 

will be rolling out more Te 

Huia train services and 

sooner in response to 

public feedback on its long 

term plan. More than 80 

per cent of all submissions 

to the council’s longterm 

plan were on the 

proposal to extend the 

new Waikato to Auckland 

passenger rail service. Of 

those 1240 submissions, 

95 per cent were in favour 

of improvements to the 

service with many wanting 

it to happen sooner than 

the proposed 2023/24 

timeframe. 

Councillors decided an 

inter-peak service will be 

trialled for 12 months, 

starting no sooner 

than December 2021. 

Councillors also approved 

an extension of Saturday 

Te Huia services to The 

Strand in Auckland’s CBD 

at a cost of $10,000 per 

annum. A start date for the 

extended service is to be 

confirmed. 

A photo from the early days shows the family building in 

central Hamilton with the Bettley daughters on the verandah 

Family farm gets 

chic new look 

A piece of enduring rural Hamilton history 

has an eye-catching new chapter in the 

form of a refurbished shipping container 

fitted out as a cafe on the city’s outskirts. 

The petting zoo is a hit 

Think of it as a slice of 

Melbourne in Matangi. 

The brainchild of 

couple Sarah Carty and Keir 

Bettley, Front Paddock cafe 

evokes Carty’s inner- city 

Melbourne background in its 

chic container design along 

with Bettley’s long-standing 

farming family association 

with the land it stands on. 

Opened after Covid lockdown, 

the Matangi Road cafe 

is a “passion project” for the 

couple, who live just a couple 

of hundred metres away. 

Carty is an account director 

with Melbourne-based iD Collective, 

who are developing 

their New Zealand presence, 

and Bettley is a co-director 

of Signature Homes Waikato 

having bought the franchise 

with two others nine years 

ago. 

It helped that Bettley was 

able to do the build himself 

with the help of a few mates. 

The refurbishment includes 

large windows at either end, 

providing welcome light and 

warmth. Carty, who manages 

the cafe and its social media, 

says she wasn’t initially convinced 

by Bettley’s idea for 

a plywood interior but now 

thinks it works well, reflecting 

the earthy surroundings. 

With the Bettleys well known 

in the area - Keir’s brother and 

parents also live nearby on 

the former family farm - once 

work started, curious locals 

would stop and ask what was 

happening. 

“I loved the process - 

designing it and seeing how 

it was going to work,” Bettley 

says. “It was quite a tricky 

undertaking, but we figured 

things out as we went. I’m 

really pleased with it.” 

The job was carried out 

mostly at weekends, and completed 

after Covid lockdown, 

with the cafe opening on May 

18. Carty says the timing was 

“probably a bit nuts” but paid 

off, providing an opportunity 

to connect with locals who 

had just come off the back of 

a lockdown. 

“As soon as level two hit, 

we took the opportunity. It 

was good because people were 

super keen to come and get 

takeaway coffees.” 

Front Paddock features 

a playground and a petting 

zoo shared with the neighbouring 

Meadows Early 

Learning Centre. 

Local suppliers are to the 

fore, with the cafe’s kombucha 

coming from Gutsy, 

which is based in Riverlea, 

and raw treats courtesy 

of Hamilton-based 

Little S and P. There is also a 

plant stall from The Plant Girl 

and an organic vegetable stand 

courtesy of nearby Tomtit, 

a fellow startup. 

The counter food comes 

from Volare while Carty says 

Ben, the barista, knows their 

regulars by name, along with 

their life stories. 

Through Signature Homes, 

Bettley had already built the 

Meadows centre, and he and 

Carty could see the value 

in building a cafe for parents 

dropping off their children. 

Staff from Atawhai 

Assisi Home and Hospital 

across the road are also 

customers, as are other locals. 

Carty says they have aimed 

to make Front Paddock a destination, 

particularly at weekends, 

helped by the petting zoo 

and playground. Long term, 

expansion of the cafe is in their 

sights including a commercial 

kitchen on site. 

While the cafe is the 

result of Carty and 

Bettley’s individual 

stories, it also reflects a 

wider Hamilton and Waikato 

history as urban settlements 

have gradually encroached 

onto their rural outskirts, 

changing the land use. Originally 

used for dairying, later 

converted to maize cropping 

and subsequently divided by 

Front Paddock founders Sarah Carty and Keir Bettley 

the expressway, the former 

farm alongside Matangi Road 

is now largely residential with 

some haymaking and grazing, 

as well as supporting the early 

childcare and cafe businesses. 

The cafe’s name, Front 

Paddock, evokes that background, 

with Bettley recalling 

a time as a youngster when he 

would be kicking a rugby ball 

around on what was the farm’s 

front paddock and the only one 

not planted in maize. 

Family history, as recollected 

by Keir’s parents Zane 

and Sheryl, takes the story 

back to Hamilton’s early days 

when a Bettley who was an 

officer in the British army 

was allocated rural and town 

properties. 

The early Bettleys had two 

town properties. One was in 

Victoria Street and was a tearoom 

and a butchers, with a 

boarding house upstairs. The 

second was a house situated 

opposite the courthouse where 

Countdown is today. The 

rural property was eventually 

divided into three. 

A great-uncle of Zane’s, 

called Jack, had one portion 

and ran a butchery on his farm. 

It is his former land where 

Front Paddock now stands. 

Meanwhile, Zane’s grandfather, 

Arthur, had a portion that 

has now been subdivided. The 

third portion was for Jack and 

Arthur’s sisters, Maude, Lottie, 

Mabel and Nora. 

Jack did not marry, and 

left half his portion to Zane’s 

father, George, and the other 

half equally between Zane and 

his brothers Craig and Warren. 

The three brothers and their 

father formed a company in 

the early 1970s and continued 

to run a dairy farm of about 

200 acres before changing to 

cropping maize in the late 70s. 

Further change came about 

20 years ago, when Transit 

New Zealand designated part 

of the farm for the expressway, 

which virtually cut 

the farm in half. 

The government agency 

purchased about 110 acres off 

the company and eventually 

sold back about 30 acres. Too 

small to be used as a farm, the 

excess land has been leased 

out for potatoes and pumpkins, 

and for hay and grazing. 

In continuing development 

of the block, about six years 

ago Keir Bettley built the 

home he and Carty now live 

in, on an 8000 square metre 

lot. Their trans-Tasman relationship 

became a Waikato 

one after Carty shifted from 

her native Australia, initially to 

Auckland and then two years 

ago to Hamilton where she is 

enjoying the lifestyle. 

Two and a half years ago, 

Bettley’s Signature Homes 

then built a house for his 

brother on the second of three 

titles on the block of land, 

while their parents are currently 

building a retirement 

home on the remaining title. 

Its use has changed markedly, 

but the block of land with its 

farming history remains solidly 

in the Bettley family. 

• Front Paddock is open 

6.30am-2.30pm weekdays 

and 8am-2pm weekends.


19 

ley 

New premises signal next 

chapter for Zero Fire 

Opening the doors of its new Hamilton 

premises to clients in May marked the 

beginning of the next chapter for fire 

protection specialists Zero Fire. 

First established in 2015 

with a handful of key 

staff, Zero Fire was originally 

based out of the home of 

its director Travis Pocock. 

“It really was just small 

beginnings for us,” he says. 

“As the business grew I kept 

adding more Portacoms and 

sheds at my property to cater 

to the additional staff.” 

Significant growth over the 

past six years means Pocock 

now employs close to 50 staff 

and offers a range of fire protection 

services including fire 

sprinkler systems, fire alarm 

systems, fire hydrant systems, 

passive fire protection as well 

as testing and compliance and 

service and maintenance of 

these systems. A purpose-built 

premises designed by Edwards 

White and constructed by Fosters 

was completed late last 

year, with Zero Fire holding 

an open day for its clients, 

suppliers and industry partners 

on site in May. 

“Relationships are key for 

us; they are the foundation for 

Zero Fire and the reason we 

have experienced such significant 

growth over the past six 

years. So it was fantastic to be 

able to welcome our valued 

Matt Bryson (Hydroflow) with Manual Mahuta 

from Zero Fire and Jonathan Hooper, Zero Fire. 

Travis Pocock, managing 

director Zero Fire 

clients, suppliers and partners 

at our new premises on Ossie 

James Drive and celebrate just 

how far we have come,” says 

Pocock. The premises enables 

staff to work together more 

efficiently and has allowed 

Zero Fire to expand its services 

even further into the new 

areas of testing and compliance, 

and service and maintenance. 

“Having more space has 

allowed us to fill some key 

roles in order to provide the 

new services – this means that 

regardless of whether we were 

the installer or not, we can 

now service and maintain all 

fire protection systems.” 

Heading up the new services 

are Shannon Sanson and 

Alun Rodgers who between 

them have an impressive 29 

years’ industry experience. 

“This is a bit of a theme 

here across Zero Fire,” says 

Pocock. “A lot of our staff 

have clocked up a vast amount 

of fire industry experience 

which is invaluable to us.” 

Pocock says when Zero 

Fire was first established it 

was focussed solely on delivering 

fire sprinkler systems 

and soon expanded to include 

the key services of fire alarms 

and passive fire protection. 

“Each time we’ve expanded 

our services we’ve welcomed 

on board new specialists who 

continue to broaden our collective 

skillset and expertise, 

enabling us to provide a more 

comprehensive and higher 

level of service to our clients.” 

Pocock says Zero Fire is 

committed to further expanding 

the team’s expertise 

through ongoing professional 

training and development 

opportunities, as well as nurturing 

new industry talent. 

“Currently we have several 

young employees on board 

who are keen to make a career 

for themselves in fire protection. 

It is great, not only for 

Zero Fire but the wider industry, 

to have the next generation 

of talent making their way 

through the ranks.” 

Over the past few years 

Zero Fire has also branched 

out into Bay of Plenty, 

where its sprinkler general 

manager Scott Taylor has 

taken the lead. 

“Scott is well known and 

respected in the industry, so 

Zero Fire at 162 Ossie James Drive 

Amy van Garderen, Shannon Sanson 

and Keryn Ingram, Zero Fire 

having him lead the way for 

us in the Bay of Plenty makes 

sense and means we know 

we’re in safe hands.” 

Pocock credits his exceptional 

staff as the catalyst for 

Zero Fire’s growth and success 

over the past six years, 

and says having an in-house 

design team has also been an 

important point of difference. 

“The benefit to our clients 

is their plans can be adapted 

quickly to respond to any 

changes that might arise, 

ensuring onsite teams and 

other sub-contractors are not 

held up. This can really mean 

all the difference during an 

important project.”


The art of delegation 

and escalation 

Unless your business is a one-person 

band, you will need to delegate authority 

to your staff, authorising them to make 

decisions and to sign certain documents 

on your behalf. 

The level of delegated 

authority you hand 

over should be relevant 

to your needs and relevant to 

their skill set. Some questions 

you may like to consider 

include: 

• How much control do you 

want to relinquish? 

• What level is the staff 

member currently operating 

at? 

• Are there any historical 

trust issues you need to 

consider? 

• What risks are created and 

how do you manage them? 

Delegated authority may 

apply to a particular role or in 

some cases it may be specific 

to a particular person. Either 

way, you need to document 

and discuss the details: 

• What decisions are they 

allowed to make? 

• What types of documents 

are they allowed to sign? 

• Is it acceptable for the delegated 

authority to be redelegated 

down the ranks? 

• At what stage do you 

want them to escalate 

issues back up to you? 

Be particularly careful when 

staff are signing contracts on 

behalf of your business as 

this area is fraught with difficulty 

- contracts are legally 

binding and lock you in to a 

certain course of action with 

consequences. 

It only takes a third party 

to convince one of your staff 

to sign a contract, or perhaps 

a naïve or over-confident 

manager who is prepared to 

take matters into their own 

hands, and WHAM you have 

a problem! 

Levels of delegated 

authority need to be reviewed 

regularly: as the business 

grows and roles develop, you 

will need to modify levels. 

Review annually at least. 

The more you delegate, 

the more you risk becoming 

isolated and ill-informed as 

to what is happening in the 

business. 

How many times have we 

witnessed CEOs in the media 

providing the stock standard 

answer “I didn’t know 

anything about this”, when 

being held accountable for 

some serious situation. Of 

course, this generic line can 

be an indicator they are disconnected 

and out of touch 

with the business; however, 

it is often a symptom of delegation 

in play without escalation. 

The person with the 

delegated authority needs to 

know the risk they are sitting 

on, the decisions they 

are expected to make and the 

stage they should let you (or 

their manager) know of an 

unravelling situation. 

When a problem is spiralling 

out of control, the 

quicker you step in and provide 

advice, clarity and offer 

THE BUSINESS EDGE 

> BY BRENDA WILLIAMSON 

Brenda Williamson runs business advisory service 

Brenda Williamson and Associates www.bwa.net.nz 

possible solutions, the sooner 

you will be able to contain the 

problem and ensure you minimise 

reputational damage and 

possible financial loss. Problems 

start small and grow 

with time. 

I always found that weekly 

meetings with my direct 

report managers kept me in 

the loop of what decisions 

they had made, what decisions 

they were intending 

to make, and it gave me the 

opportunity to offer advice on 

how they could handle tricky 

situations. 

Setting clear expectations, 

ensuring communication is 

effective upwards and downwards 

within the business and 

being accessible to your team 

will all help. 

At what stage is that person 

(with delegated authority) 

able to ring you after 

hours to discuss an out-ofcontrol 

problem? I personally 

operated with an open-door 

policy. 

In addition to weekly 

meetings, they knew they 

could pop in discuss a problem 

any time, including ringing 

me day or night. This 

gave them confidence to 

actively manage and gave me 

confidence in knowing I was 

connected. 

Be present – stay 

connected and look out 

for your team. 

Confession of a 

District Court Judge 

By ANGELA VANDERWEE 

Retired District Court 

Judge Rosemary Riddell 

returned to Hamilton 

in May to launch a memoir 

of her time on the bench. 

Judges, court staff and lawyers 

from around the Waikato 

came to congratulate her on 

Angela Vanderwee, Daniel Wein, Judge 

Geoghegan, Judge Riddell and Judge Spear 

the achievement, and to hear 

her reading from the book. 

Hamilton law firm, Ellice 

Tanner Hart hosted the book 

launch of To Be Fair – Confessions 

of a District Court Judge 

on 14 May. 

Host Angela Vanderwee 

and directors Paul Ellice, Rob 

Hart and Daniel Wein were 

delighted with the turnout. 

Riddell’s excerpts were both 

witty and poignant and made 

for an entertaining evening. 

Riddell sat as a judge in 

Hamilton so launching her 

book amongst her old friends 

and colleagues held special 

importance for her. 

Her book is a collection of 

reminiscences about her time 

on the bench, both funny and 

sad. She says she wanted to 

show that judges are not high 

and mighty, but very human. 

“It was also a good opportunity 

to describe what goes on 

in a court room for those who 

have never darkened its doors. 

People generally have opinions 

about sentencing and criminals. 

I hope that after reading 

this book, they might reconsider 

some views, or at least 

gain some knowledge about 

the judicial process.” 

The idea of writing a book 

came out of the blue. “I was 

feeling a bit sorry for myself, 

having resigned as a judge 

and was wondering ‘who am 

I now apart from being a pensioner?’.” 

Her husband Mike encouraged 

her to write so one day she 

wrote out chapter headings and 

then away she went. The memories 

spilled out faster than she 

could write them down and she 

found it quite therapeutic. 

“I had loved the judging job 

and could see myself doing it 

into my seventies. But a combination 

of factors interceded. 

Mike has prostate cancer and 

there are various trips to oncology. 

My Mum came to live 

next door and it was important 

to spend time with her. And 

then finally, I found the travel 

to courts around the country 

from Central Otago to be too 

onerous. So the job had to go.” 

She never contemplated 

writing such a book while she 

was a judge. 

“I was never sitting on the 

bench thinking that all this was 

fodder for a book. That said, it 

really was a unique experience 

being a judge and a humbling 

one, constantly dealing with 

painful situations in people’s 

lives, particularly in the Family 

Court.” 

Riddell says she hasn’t 

breached any confidences 

and that names and scenarios 

have been changed. The stories 

are also interspersed with 

her views on topics such as 

poverty, racism and domestic 

violence. 

“I have of course ventured 

strong views on laws that I 

consider should be changed. 

Now I couldn’t have said that 

while a judge!” 

Angela Vanderwee is an 

Associate at Ellice Tanner 

Hart Lawyers 

Rob Hart, Judge Riddell, Paul Ellice and Daniel Wein 

Angela Vanderwee and Judge Riddell


21 

Insurance up-and-comer has eye 

on the future 

Tech risk and cyber attacks are set to 

become an increasingly important part 

of the business insurance sector, says a 

Hamilton advisor. 

Cyber crime is the new 

frontier when it comes 

to insurance, with the 

digital side of business just as 

important as physical assets, 

Ryan Mulder says. 

The risk, foregrounded by 

the recent high-profile hack 

of the Waikato DHB’s computer 

system, will continue 

to grow with the increasing 

takeup of technology by business. 

Mulder says the insurance 

industry has previously been 

focused on physical assets, 

where there can be a direct 

loss through the likes of theft, 

breakage or fire. 

But the use of technology 

is introducing a new realm of 

risk, particularly around privacy. 

“We had changes in the 

Privacy Act in December 

2020, which holds business 

owners a hell of a lot more 

liable with their client information 

than they used to be. 

“New business risks are 

coming into the industry and 

it's important to make sure that 

you're not only covering your 

physical asset, but you're also 

covering your digital asset.” 

That includes client information, 

bank account numbers 

and passwords. 

I want to be able 

to bring technology 

change effectively 

into the industry 

to make it simple, 

make it easy and 

affordable for 

people to use and 

understand the value 

of insurance industry 

a lot more. 

Mulder works with a 

certified ethical hacker to 

help businesses understand 

whether any of their information 

has been leaked, potentially 

exposing them to hackers 

making demands such as 

untraceable Bitcoin. 

“It's really interesting to 

have those chats with people 

and help them understand 

how that kind of thing may 

potentially unfold, and then 

how we utilise insurance 

to make sure that they don't 

have a financial loss if anything 

like that happened.” 

Mulder, who has been 

working in insurance for 

three years, has picked up 

national recognition from 

the industry, making the list 

of Insurance Business NZ 

Young Guns for 2021. 

He is an adviser with 

Quantum Finance, one of 

two in the general and fire 

part of the business, and has 

built a significant book of 

business while also creating 

a standard operating procedure 

used throughout the 

firm for customer service and 

onboarding. Mulder says his 

approach has been to bring 

an empathetic approach, and 

help clients understand what 

they are paying for. 

“With me coming into the 

industry with no prior knowledge, 

I understand the need to 

make things simple and easy 

for people to understand. 

“Because these are relatively 

large costs for people 

each year, and there's no 

point in paying for something 

that you don't understand, or 

paying for something that's 

not going to be of use to you 

at the time that you need it the 

most.” 

Mulder, 30, joined the 

Hamilton firm at the end of 

2018, the year after it had 

Ryan Mulder has 

made the Insurance 

Business NZ Young 

Guns list. 

started. While Waikato is 

their hub, Mulder’s clients 

come from around the country 

and range from single-person 

outfits to larger corporates. 

“I want to be able to 

bring technology change 

effectively into the industry 

to make it simple, make 

it easy and affordable for 

people to use and understand 

the value of insurance 

industry a lot more,” he says. 

“I really do impress on 

people that we are going to 

see a massive shift in the 

industry, towards more technical, 

technological change, 

and the utilisation of digital 

assets, whether that be apps 

or AI, all of these new mediums 

that are coming into play. 

They're going to be taken up 

into this industry a lot more.” 

Peacocke contract 

out for tender 

Hamilton City Council has 

moved to the final stages 

of procurement for a major 

Peacocke wastewater 

connection. The contract 

to build a wastewater 

transfer pumping station 

and associated works 

is out for tender. The 

project is expected to cost 

around $25 million and 

is the last major piece of 

infrastructure needed to 

service new housing in 

the area. 

Hamilton’s Lime 

and Dine food 

guide kicks off 

Hamilton food lovers are 

being encouraged to 

leave their cars at home 

and take a Lime scooter 

to visit the city’s eateries 

as part of a collaboration 

aimed at supporting local 

businesses. Hamilton 

Central Business 

Association and Lime 

scooters have worked 

together to create the 

“Lime and Dine” food 

guide, an initiative that 

provides discounted 

scooter travel for new 

customers who scoot to 

participating restaurants 

and cafes in the CBD. 

The “Lime and Dine” 

guide can be viewed 

at https://www. 

hamiltoncentral.co.nz. 

Duo on a mission: Time right for rainwater 

harvesting tank startup 

A 

Waikato startup 

is catching the 

wave of water conservation 

awareness as householders 

turn to its practical, 

attractive solution. 

Designer Tanks, founded 

in 2019, is poised to further 

boost sales after attracting 

investment from NZX-listed 

Just Life Group. 

The rainwater harvesting 

tanks, imported from Germany, 

come in a range of 

shapes and styles and in a 

complete kit ready for the 

householder to install. Buyers 

can easily connect the 

Graf above-ground tanks to 

downpipes and then use the 

gravity-fed supply to water 

their gardens. 

Co-directors Chloe Barrott 

and Ingrid Cook say they 

have been seeing people’s 

mindset changing in the short 

time since they have been 

operating from their Rukuhia 

base. 

The two Cambridge 

women say most customers 

are retro-fitting the tanks out 

of conservation awareness 

or in order to keep watering 

their garden during restrictions. 

Barrott describes the process 

as a change management 

exercise. 

“What we're saying is, 

rainwater is free! It's crazy 

how much of it goes down the 

drain when it could be saved 

and used,” she says. 

“But the solution doesn't 

have to be ugly. A lot of it 

is change management. It's 

about taking people on the 

journey.” 

Cook says they are seeing 

particularly strong interest 

in the Bay of Plenty, with its 

stringent water restrictions, 

and at the recent Tauranga 

Home Show they sold almost 

everything on their stand. 

Home shows have proved 

a happy hunting ground for 

the pair, who are now also 

set to support one of their 

partners at Fieldays, sharing 

a stand with tiny home company 

Amazing Spaces. 

“Each time we attend 

a show, we notice how 

much people's mindset has 

changed,” Barrott says. “Now 

what we're finding is people 

are saying, ‘oh, I've been 

looking for you, this is such a 

good idea’.” 

Cook says that includes 

one woman who had seen 

their social media feed 

and sought them out. “She 

couldn't look at anything else 

in the show until she'd seen us. 

She bought two tanks.” 

Styles range from the 

Antique Amphora terracotta 

urn shape to the Silver and 

Lava cylindrical stone look, 

and the Barrica, which resembles 

a wine barrel. 

There is also an unobtrusive 

brick wall style that 

takes show visitors by surprise 

when they realise its 

function. 

Many of the tanks have 

a planter cup on the top that 

can be used to grow plants in 

them. 

The investment by Just 

Life, which has bought a 60 

percent stake, not only injects 

funds for increasing product 

volumes but also provides 

valuable support in marketing 

and logistics. 

The two women say Just 

Life founder and chief executive 

Tony Falkenstein has 

also given hands-on support, 

attending the Tauranga Home 

Show and talking to customers. 

“He’s genuinely really 

interested, and the whole 

management team at Just Life 

Group are wonderful, positive 

people to be around.” 

The firm sits under GOAM 

(Girls on a Mission) which 

is about women helping 

women. “There are so many 

women who leave the workforce 

to raise a family and 

lose their confidence along 

the way. We really want to 

help upskill and provide a 

supportive environment for 

people to grow.” 

The impetus for Designer 

Tanks came from Barrott’s 

experience in 2018 of Outward 

Bound, where as part 

of the Solo Expedition the 

attendees bring their human 

Ingrid Cook and Chloe Barrott with one of their Amphora tanks. 

waste back to Anakiwa 

for recycling so it is fit for 

drinking. One of the leaders 

said he didn’t want to 

be telling his children in 

10 years’ time that they 

used to use drinking water 

to flush toilets. 

“It just sat with me for 

ages and to be honest, it still 

hasn't left me,” Barrott says. 

“I thought, there's got to be 

a way to at least contribute 

to this in a sustainable way, 

and a way that most people 

would want and can afford 

and is helping at least a little 

bit. I didn't see why it needed 

to be ugly.” 

That led her to sharing the 

story with Cook who, similarly 

keen on the conservation 

message, was quick to 

join her in the formation of 

GOAM and Designer Tanks. 

“Sustainability, getting 

back to the basics of doing 

your own garden and growing 

your own veggies, that's 

really important as we move 

forward in this day and age - 

and rainwater is the best thing 

for plants,” Barrott says 

Cook adds: “Rainwater is 

free, everyone should really 

be collecting it.”


HR AND RECRUITMENT 

Your recruitment 

asset in Waikato. 

Employers urged to reassess 

recruitment process in tough 

Waikato labour market 

Looking for staff? You’re not alone. With New 

Zealand’s unemployment rate at an almost 

record low (4.7% at the end of the first quarter 

of this year), securing candidates for new and 

vacant roles is a tough process. 

Locally owned and operated, Asset Recruitment 

has been established for more than 30 years. 

We’re specialists in temporary, permanent, 

executive and industrial recruitment. 

We align great candidates with great opportunities; 

‘positioning excellence’ throughout Waikato. So, if you’re 

currently looking to hire or would like to discuss your career 

opportunities, get in touch with our team. 

07 839 3685 | www.assetrec.co.nz 

Temporary 

recruitment 

Permanent 

recruitment 

Executive 

recruitment 

Industrial 

recruitment 

For many companies in 

Waikato, and indeed 

throughout New Zealand, 

migrant workers make up a significant 

part of the workforce, 

both in permanent and temporary 

positions. 

But, since COVID-19 closed 

New Zealand borders, and 

in light of the Government’s 

recent budget, not to mention 

the Economic Minister’s introductory 

speech about an immigration 

reset, New Zealand’s 

migrant workforce is much 

depleted. Furthermore, temporary 

work visa changes look set 

to favour highly skilled migrant 

workers while the Government 

encourages businesses to first 

consider New Zealanders for 

roles, and to reassess the skills 

and training on offer. 

So, what does that mean for 

the recruitment sector? And 

how can organisations gain a 

competitive advantage in areas/ 

roles where labour is desperately 

needed? 

“It’s going to continue to 

be tough to find candidates 

initially, which means businesses 

will need to reconsider 

their recruitment strategies,” 

explains Judith Bright, Asset 

Recruitment’s Permanent 

Recruitment Specialist. “Hiring 

for a position that may 

have been filled relatively easily 

18 months earlier will be a 

very different process this time 

around.” 

“We’re encouraging organisations 

to see this as an 

opportunity to reflect on their 

recruitment process, reassess 

roles and think about what it is 

they’re looking for in a candidate. 

Approaching a vacancy 

differently can open up a pool 

of candidates who may not 

have been considered previously. 

This may call for a wider 

recruitment reset, which Asset 

Recruitment can advise and 

help with, and that’s likely to 

bring about positive changes in 

the long run,” Judith says. 

Asset Recruitment is also 

encouraging businesses to 

evaluate what kind of impression 

potential candidates may 

receive of an organisation. 

“What does your company 

brand say about you?” 

asks Judith. “How proactive is 

your communication? Is your 

company’s public persona 

reflective of the organisational 

culture within? Candidates do 

Judith Bright 

have a choice in the current 

market. How can you ensure 

they choose to join your team?” 

Judith says another factor 

businesses are up against 

is the potential brain drain of 

young and skilled people heading 

to Australia, now that the 

Trans-Tasman bubble is open. 

“It’s really tough to be 

an employer at the moment. 

That’s why we’re encouraging 

businesses to utilise 

the services of a recruitment 

company. Our team know the 

market, we have candidates on 

our database, we can work in 

with companies to assess their 

recruitment needs, and we can 

advise on how to recruit candidates 

who will fit your company 

culture. Yes, it’s tougher 

than ever before to position 

excellence, but it’s not impossible 

and our team can provide 

that solution for you.” 

Judith Bright is a Permanent 

Recruitment Specialist at Asset 

Recruitment, Waikato’s leading 

recruitment company for temporary, 

permanent, executive 

and industrial recruitment. 

An HR consultancy 

with a difference. 

Helping our clients leverage HR 

as a tool for business success. 

We can help with: 

• Outsourced HR 

• Organisational 

Development 

• Employee Relations and 

Problem Solving 

• Change Management 

• People Strategy 

• Leadership and Employer 

Development 

• Performance and 

Development 

• Pay and Benefits 

Contact us for a chat 

on 07 2420 447 or hello@stapleton.consulting 

Visit our website at www.stapleton.consulting 

Top HR challenges 

facing business: Talent 

attraction, retention, 

productivity 

The Covid-19 pandemic 

has propelled HR into 

the spotlight and helped 

business leaders focus on what 

is important, says Waikato HR 

firm Stapleton Consulting. 

“Retention, talent attraction 

and productivity are the 

big issues we see facing NZ 

businesses in the wake of 

Covid-19,” said the firm’s Director, 

Catherine Stapleton. 

“Now more than ever, 

business leaders realise the 

importance of attracting the 

right people, keeping them 

in their roles for longer, and 

making sure they’re engaged 

and productive,” she said. 

Catherine said businesses 

need to look ahead and plan 

for the skills they’ll need in 2 

- 5 years, and find and invest 

in the right people now. 

Taking a strategic approach 

to HR, managing change effectively, 

and creating positive 

employment journeys 

and culture, are key to overcoming 

these challenges, 

said Catherine. 

Talent shortages aren’t 

new, but current immigration 

policies have created more 

barriers for employers. “It’s 

going to be competitive, and 

businesses will need to be creative 

with candidate attraction 

strategies,” said Catherine. 

“It’s the experience you 

offer your employees day 

in, day out that keeps them 

coming back to share their 

expertise with you.” 

“Mental health is a talking 

point, and this is a great 

move,” she said. “We often 

see life events and difficult 

situations affect employees, 

but they don’t feel safe to 

talk about it with their managers. 

This can have a huge 

impact on job satisfaction and 

productivity.” 

Stapleton Consulting is on 

a mission to make HR simple, 

clear and accessible for businesses, 

helping leaders understand 

the big picture, and create 

strategies for success. 

The Hamilton based team 

delivers HR support at all 

levels, from HR strategy and 

management to day-to-day administration. 

The firm launched 

DIYHR.CO.NZ earlier this 

year, with its first online 

course The Change Game, 

designed to equip leaders to 

manage change or undertake 

restructures. 

“We’re genuinely intrigued 

about the barriers facing businesses, 

and work with the 

decision makers to co-design 

solutions that give clarity.” 

“We often talk about helping 

clients see the forest for 

the trees - we see our role 

as helping them navigate 

the blurry grey areas and 

bringing colour and clarity 

to the picture.” 

“If you’re asking yourself 

the big questions like, “how 

do we make more from what 

we have and keep the skills we 

have for as long as we can?”, 

then we suggest you give our 

team a call.”

HR AND RECRUITMENT 23 


HR and immigration 

support for employers 

of migrant workers 

Critical immigration changes are about to impact the ability 

of employers to keep their migrant workers. 

Do you employ 

staff on work 

visas? 

Businesses employing 

migrant workers can 

get specialist HR and 

Immigration support to ensure 

they are well positioned 

to support and retain those 

workers through the changes. 

Neazor Brady are experts 

in helping New Zealand 

businesses manage and retain 

their migrant workers. 

They offer a unique blend of 

comprehensive HR, employment 

law and immigration 

expertise, including 15 years’ 

specialising in work visas. 

This enables them to ensure 

their clients meet all the HR 

compliance and documentation 

requirements needed 

to successfully support 

their employees’ requests 

for work visa extensions 

and residency. 

Neazor Brady Partner, 

Catherine Neazor Brady, 

says, “Significant immigration 

and visa changes are 

being implemented this year 

that will impact all businesses 

employing migrant workers, 

and especially those that 

employ six or more migrants. 

It’s important that employers 

understand how these changes 

will affect their business, 

and how they can best prepare 

for them.” 

From 1 November 2021, 

Employer Accreditation 

with Immigration New 

Zealand will be compulsory 

for all employers who 

sponsor work visas. 

Changes will also be made 

to the types of visas available, 

the level of compliance 

required for accreditation, 

and remuneration thresholds 

(likely to increase on 1 July). 

The entire 

landscape for 

employing migrant 

workers has 

changed. This has 

created a lot of 

uncertainty for 

those workers and 

heightened the need 

for businesses to 

be well prepared to 

support them. 

Catherine, who is a Chartered 

Member of Human 

Resources New Zealand and 

a Licensed Immigration Advisor 

says, “The entire landscape 

for employing migrant 

workers has changed. This 

has created a lot of uncertainty 

for those workers and 

heightened the need for businesses 

to be well prepared to 

support them.” 

Neazor Brady is currently 

helping businesses put the 

necessary processes and documentation 

in place to secure 

their critical employees’ work 

visas before the new changes 

take effect. 

Catherine adds, “The accreditation 

process for businesses 

employing six or more 

migrant workers is expected 

to be robust and many employers 

may be in for a shock 

at the level of HR and compliance 

related documentation 

required.” 

Applications for the new 

visa accreditation open at the 

end of September, and with 

up to 30,000 employers needing 

accreditation, Catherine 

urges employers to act now 

to avoid inevitable delays in 

processing applications. 

Neazor Brady offers a free 

no-obligation consultation to 

discuss how the visa changes 

will potentially affect your 

business and what you need to 

do to prepare for it. Book your 

consultation today, email: 

info@neazorbrady.co.nz 

What you need to know: 

From 1 November 2021, Employer Accreditation with NZ 

Immigration will be compulsory for all employers who 

sponsor work visas. 

After 30 June 2021, you will not be able to apply for/ 

renew accreditation under the current schemes. 

Applications under the new scheme open late 

September 2021. 

Your staff can only apply for Essential Skills Work Visas 

and Work to Residence until 31 October 2021. 

Your business cannot support Temporary Work Visa 

applications after 1 November 2021 (until accredited). 

Immigration estimates 1 month processing time for 

employers with


HR AND RECRUITMENT 

NZ’s Employment 

Market Report - 

top trends explored 

By Luke Horton, Manager Waikato and Bay of Plenty 

who are committed to their 

role and to the business. 

Over the prior year we 

have experienced plenty 

of change. Words 

like ‘bubble’ and ‘team of 5 

million’ are now firmly part of 

our vocabulary. It is clear that 

the COVID-19 pandemic has 

resulted in major disruption for 

businesses. It has transformed 

the way people look for jobs, 

and what they consider when 

changing roles. It has accelerated 

some trends and reversed 

others. From the introduction 

of what ‘essential workers’ 

mean, to fundamentally changing 

the way we work, today’s 

workplaces look different compared 

to 18 months ago. 

With these changes in the 

employment market, there are 

growing numbers of employers 

looking to attract new talent. 

So, what does it take to attract 

and retain the people your business 

needs to grow and thrive? 

Each year Madison conducts research 

to understand the needs 

of job seekers and employers, 

and we publish our findings 

in our annual Employment 

Market Report. Three of key 

trends we have explored in this 

year’s report, that are particularly 

prevalent in the Waikato 

region, are flexibility, employee 

wellbeing, and an increased 

focus on work-life integration. 

1. Flexibility. The most common 

theme amongst our 

clients is the offering of 

flexible hours. One of my 

clients is specifically focused 

on attracting job 

seekers to work-from-home 

roles, and whilst a benefit in 

and of itself, the ability to 

layer flexible hours is an appealing 

addition that allows 

candidates to consider how 

they will manage full time 

employment around their 

already busy personal lives. 

2. Wellbeing. Today’s conversations 

between employees 

and current or prospective 

employers are about much 

more than just remuneration. 

What other benefits 

can your organisation offer? 

From bringing your 

dog to work, to working 

from home, birthdays off, 

subsidised health insurance 

and mental health 

initiatives, there are many 

opportunities to support 

employees’ wellbeing. 

Organisations that offer 

wellbeing initiatives in the 

workplace will see a return 

in the form of the attraction 

of broader range 

of job applicants, alongside 

engaged employees 

3. Work-life Integration. You 

could say that both flexibility 

and wellbeing contribute 

positively to good work-life 

balance. With the appreciation 

that people’s lives 

are busy, some of the employers 

we work with are 

supporting their employees 

by offering increased flexibility 

for balancing personal 

commitments with work. 

We see evidence of the impact 

of this trend published 

in our survey, and anecdotally 

we are already hearing 

of increased employee 

happiness and productivity 

from our clients. 

These three themes are a key 

selection of the trends that we 

have seen rise to the top of our 

job seekers’ and employers’ list 

of priorities for this year – and 

we think they are here to stay. 

More themes and insights 

are shared in the full report, 

along with industry trends 

and regional salary guides 

for various industries and 

sectors. 

To get a copy of our newly 

published 2021 New 

Zealand Employment Market 

Report you can contact 

us on 07 839 5660 or visit 

madison.co.nz/emr2021 to 

download the report.

Front-foot it or 

cross fingers? 

Does anyone else feel like May was crisis 

month? The HMC team sure had our fair 

share of issues and crises come across our 

desks recently. 

Complimentary Ed 

19.1x6 

part – that companies (just 

like people) make mistakes 

sometimes. 

And, you’ll put a lot of 

goodwill in the trust bank 

when you admit you’ve done 

wrong, apologise to those 

hurt and show proof of how 

you are rectifying the situation. 

And don’t forget to circle 

back at a future date to let 

people know how the situation 

has been resolved and 

why your organisation and 

your people are better for it. 

Since issues are on my 

mind, I thought I’d talk 

about one subject that 

comes up repeatedly when 

working with boards and 

leadership teams to manage 

reputational crises, in 

particular. 

Inevitably, as reputational 

issues emerge, there are 

going to be facts and stories 

that will damage your organisation’s 

reputation if and 

when they become public. 

So, how do you deal with 

those facts? Do you frontfoot 

them and lift the veil 

yourself by making them 

public? Or do you cross fingers 

hoping media, staff or 

stakeholders don’t uncover 

them? 

From my experience, in 

nearly every situation the 

best way to deal with a reputational 

issue is proactively 

and with honesty. 

I told a client recently, it’s 

like tearing off a plaster. Just 

do it, say it, and let’s deal 

with it. 

Taking the “front-foot” 

approach is far from easy 

- but doing the right thing 

in life rarely is, right? The 

initial announcement will 

be tough and you’ll need 

to brace yourself for what 

comes next. But the great 

thing about front-footing a 

negative situation is that you 

control the timing, which 

allows you to prepare for just 

about anything that comes 

your way. 

There are four good 

reasons to front-foot 

a reputational issue: 

Gives you time to plan 

PR AND COMMUNICATIONS 

> BY HEATHER CLAYCOMB 

The best thing about 

front-footing an issue is that 

you take control and you can 

plan when and how you’ll 

make the announcement. 

Work through what you’re 

going to say and think about 

all the communications 

Heather Claycomb is director of HMC Communications, a 

Hamilton-based, award-winning public relations agencys. 

you need to do. This might 

include staff briefing notes, 

emails to key stakeholders, a 

media release, social media 

posts, a website story and 

more. 

Once you pick the day and 

time, take the leap. Then, 

make sure your spokesperson 

– your Chair or CEO 

– has cleared the decks and 

is ready to talk to staff, take 

phone calls and do media 

interviews. 

Being available is incredibly 

important so you don’t 

look like you are hiding from 

the bad news. 

Avoids a defensive position 

Social media and the 24-hour 

news cycle means crises 

break online at any hour of 

the day or night. And when 

that happens and bad news 

comes to light unexpectedly, 

you’ll quickly be put in the 

defensive position. And 

anyone who’s played sport 

knows it is difficult to ‘win’ 

when you don’t control the 

ball. 

If you’re caught unaware 

and start bumbling around 

asking your colleagues or 

advisors, “what should we 

say?,” there’s never going to 

be a good ending. Get on the 

offensive instead. 

Demonstrates integrity 

Your staff, customers and the 

community where you operate 

understand – for the most 

Shows you’re not hiding 

anything 

Public outrage can quickly 

gain momentum and skyrocket 

out of control when 

people think an organisation 

is trying to hide something. 

And when you don’t respond 

immediately when a negative 

situation comes to light, people 

will automatically assume 

you are hiding something. 

Be as transparent as you can 

in times of crisis and it will 

help you weather the reputation 

storm. 

So, if I’ve convinced you 

that front-footing is nearly 

always the best strategy, when 

is it not the right approach? 

When individual privacy 

issues are involved, or when 

there is a legal process taking 

place are two such instances 

which add complexity that 

must be taken into account. 

In summary, however, 

remember that crossing 

fingers is rarely the 

smart thing to do when a 

reputational issue rears its 

head. 

Instead, put on your big 

kid boots and front-foot it. 

When good employees go bad... 

Senga Allen 

Managing Director 

Everest – all about people TM 

What happens when 

one of your stars 

begins to underperform? 

What do you do? 

Have you ever considered 

it could be a bit of the old 

“chicken and the egg” conundrum 

– what comes first bad 

management or bad employee 

behaviour? In the long run 

it may not actually matter, 

but there is a mutual culpability 

that must be addressed. 

For employees, under-performing 

behaviour can manifest 

in lots of different ways 

– increased absenteeism, 

just doing enough to get by, 

low energy levels, decreased 

interaction 

with co-workers, reduced 

contribution to projects, negativity 

slipping into conversations 

– and the list goes on! 

For employers, a visible 

lack of “good management” 

can have a significant impact 

on the workplace. Research 

shows us that money isn’t the 

primary motivator for leaving 

a job. In fact it’s about 10th 

on the list. The biggest single 

reason good employees leave 

is because of the behaviour 

of their direct supervisor. So 

what contributes to ineffective 

management? 

• Lack of direct communication 

and information 

• Lack of clarity and the 

provision of standards/ 

expectations 

• Lack of positive reinforcement 

or acknowledgement 

of successes 

• Lack of face-toface 

communication 

– these days 

there appears to 

an over-reliance on passive 

communication techniques 

such as electronic 

media to convey critical 

information rather than 

sitting down face-to-face. 

For employers, 

a visible lack 

of “good 

management” can 

have a significant 

impact on the 

workplace. 

Direct face-to-face communication 

might also enable you 

to find out if there are other or 

external factors which could 

be affecting their performance. 

If a good employee 

starts to perform poorly we 

need to examine why. Typically 

stars don’t get up 

one morning and make a 

decision to under-perform. 

Consider the 

following when 

diagnosing 

what might be affecting your 

star employee: 

• Does the employee have 

the capability to do the 

task – if they did it before, 

then they can do it again. 

• Has the employee been 

trained on the correct way 

of doing the job – how 

long ago was the training? 

If they’ve carried out the 

tasks correctly in the past, 

then it’s likely they can do 

it again properly. 

• Does the employee use 

the skill often enough to 

remember how to do the 

job next time? 

• Does the employee know 

he/she is doing it correctly/incorrectly? 

What quality checks are in 

place to give the employee 

feedback on their performance 

– who is responsible 

for giving that feedback? 

• Are you punishing exceptional 

performance? By 

this I mean – do you 

swamp your star with lots 

of extra projects because 

they are always capable of 

taking on more? 

• Are you rewarding poor 

performance? Has your 

superstar been switched 

off because they regularly 

stand by and watch you 

rescue poor performing 

employees by handing 

their work over to good 

employees – rather than 

dealing with the problem 

employee? 

There are always genuine 

reasons why performance 

slips away – our role as business 

owners and managers is 

to find out why. 

That might also include 

looking in the mirror and 

asking questions about 

our own management 

techniques.


Hamilton’s ecommerce 

success stories 

The world of retail has changed. Retail was 

once confined to a physical store, but now 

Hamilton-based retailers sell to customers 

all around New Zealand, and even the 

world, through the power of ecommerce. 

Fifteen years ago, way 

back in 2006, I was privileged 

to be in a small 

group of young entrepreneurs 

who were taken on a personalised 

tour of Torpedo7’s 

warehouse in Melville by 

co-founder Guy Howard-Willis. 

He told us how Torpedo7 

had begun from his son and 

co-founder Luke’s passion for 

mountain biking. Launched in 

2004, Torpedo7 had quickly 

experienced explosive growth. 

Standing in their large 

warehouse packed with bikes 

and bike accessories, and hearing 

their story of growth, it 

seemed amazing that people 

would buy bikes and accessories 

online, in such large numbers. 

It was one of the first very 

THE DIGITAL WORLD 

> BY JOSH MOORE 

Josh Moore leads the team at Duoplus - a Hamilton-based 

digital marketing agency that helps businesses grow through 

highly measurable online marketing. www.duoplus.nz 

successful ecommerce stores 

in New Zealand. 

But it turned out that what 

felt like an enormous warehouse 

at that time was just the 

beginning. Guy told us that 

they were working on launching 

another idea which they 

thought might be even bigger 

than Torpedo7. The next year 

they launched 1-day.co.nz, 

which expanded their target 

audience from biking and 

sporting enthusiasts to “anyone 

with a credit card” as Guy 

put it. The 24-hour daily deal 

concept put their growth on 

steroids. 

Every day at 11:51am the 

email announcing today’s 

crazy deals would arrive in 

hundreds of thousands of 

inboxes across the country. 

The specials would go live at 

noon and every day thousands 

of items would be sold. During 

their famous “bag of crap” 

sales they sometimes sold over 

40,000 items within 24 hours. 

All of this from an ecommerce 

store based in Melville. 

In 2013 The Warehouse 

Group purchased a 51 percent 

stake in Torpedo7 for $33 

million, and then went on to 

acquire full ownership. It was 

only after this acquisition that 

Torpedo7 moved into bricksand-mortar 

stores. Before 

that, they were exclusively an 

ecommerce store. 

Ecommerce has the power 

to break down geographic 

barriers and help local stores 

reach customers around New 

Zealand, and even the world. 

While Topedo7 might be 

the pinnacle example of ecommerce 

success from Hamilton, 

there are many other ecommerce 

success stories to be 

told. 

Many Hamilton bricksand-mortar 

retail stores have 

successful ecommerce sites. 

Health2000, whose head office 

is in Hamilton, has 64 stores 

around New Zealand, and a 

thriving ecommerce store too. 

Mobility Centre has stores 

around the North Island, as 

well as a booming ecommerce 

store. 

EquipOutdoors in Frankton 

launched initially purely 

online, with a DIY website and 

a TradeMe account. Now, even 

with only one physical store, it 

is one of the large camping and 

outdoor equipment retailers 

in New Zealand, thanks to its 

ecommerce site. 

Other local ecommerce 

success stories include Eliot 

Jessep’s Costume World, 

which was acquired by an Australian 

supplier, and his current 

business Game Kings which 

Eliot says did just shy of $200K 

in sales just in the period of 

Black Friday to Cyber Monday 

last year. Game Kings is partly 

owned by Alex Mark, who also 

owns Sportsfuel, which has a 

thriving ecommerce site and 

a growing number of physical 

stores. 

Then there are the little 

companies you have never 

heard of that are taking on the 

world from Hamilton, such as 

Block Blue Light – a highly 

successful ecommerce store 

that sells their products in New 

Zealand, Australia and UK. 

And PressureBall – an innovative 

tennis product that sells 

to customers all around the 

world. 

Further Hamilton ecommerce 

success stories include 

Patney (the anti-snoring 

pillow), Greenlea Butcher, 

MotoX Parts, Powerhouse 

Fitness, BuggyBoard NZ, and 

many more. 

Ecommerce does an amazing 

job of removing barriers 

to business growth. However, 

having an ecommerce store 

isn’t a guarantee of nationwide 

expansion. One local shop I 

spoke to has an ecommerce 

store with over 1300 products 

available, but gets very few 

online sales. 

The key comes down to 

having the right online marketing 

to put your product in front 

of your ideal target market. 

“Build it and they will come” 

doesn’t work in ecommerce. 

Once you have an online 

store you need to use a combination 

of digital marketing 

methods to get hungry buyers 

to your site. Depending on your 

products and target market, 

your digital marketing could 

include Google Ads (search 

ads, shopping ads, display), 

SEO to get ranked highly in 

search engines, Facebook and 

Instagram ads, YouTube ads, 

organic social media, email 

campaigns and more. 

The power of ecommerce 

combined with the right digital 

marketing mix is immense. 

Especially with how measurable 

results are online. 

The online version of this 

article on the Duoplus blog 

will include a list of ecommerce 

stores based in the 

Waikato. If you run an ecommerce 

store from here in the 

Waikato, I’d love to include 

you on the list. Just email me 

at josh@duoplus.nz 

Let’s continue to create 

more amazing ecommerce 

success stories! 

What the zero carbon bill and carbon 

neutrality mean for business 

By RACHAEL GODDARD 

Consensus on human-induced 

climate change 

is unequivocal. The 

International Panel on Climate 

Change (IPCC) states that 100 

percent of global warming 

over the past 60 years is predominantly 

human caused. 

Since the Kyoto Protocol 

in 1997, atmospheric carbon 

dioxide has risen from 

364ppm to 417ppm. The current 

rise in CO2 is at least 300 

times faster than the combined 

effect of natural processes 

during the last ten thousand 

years. 

Scientists predict by the 

end of the century that, if we 

do not act now, forecasted 

3-4°C temperature increases 

will be devastating. For 

New Zealand this will mean 

increased drought, as evidenced 

in Waikato with four 

out of the last five years being 

declared droughts. On farms, 

dry matter production was 

down by 20 percent over those 

5 years. The Ministry for the 

Environment (NZ) predict 

that temperatures will be 1 

degree higher within 25 years, 

and that the length of time in 

drought will increase. Spring 

rainfall is likely to decrease 

by 4 percent, whereas heavy 

rainfall events are likely to 

become more frequent. 

There is consensus from 

climate scientists that temperatures 

must be stabilised 

at 1.5°C. Globally, this means 

halving greenhouse gas emissions 

every decade from now 

to approach net zero emissions 

by 2050. 

In 2019, the New Zealand 

Government passed the Zero 

Carbon Bill, a piece of legislation 

which sets an ambitious 

target: to reduce all greenhouse 

gases (except biogenic 

methane) to net zero by 2050, 

and a reduction of between 

24 percent and 47 percent of 

methane emissions by 2050. 

These targets are intended to 

keep global warming to within 

1.5°C by 2050. 

Public sector and crown 

entities in New Zealand are 

now either being ‘encouraged’ 

or ‘directed’ to track, certify 

and report on the greenhouse 

gas emissions to achieve carbon 

neutrality by 2025. For 

example, the DHBs have to 

measure, verify and report 

their emissions annually, set 

gross emissions reductions 

targets with longer-term 

reduction plans for the next 

decade and, by December 

2025, offset any remaining 

emissions to achieve carbon 

neutrality. Other requirements 

include an immediate focus 

on phasing out the largest and 

most active coal boilers. Government 

agencies are also now 

required to purchase electric 

vehicles and reduce the size 

of their car fleet, and Green 

standards are required for all 

public sector buildings. 

In addition, trail blazing 

legislation from the Government 

has rendered climate-related 

disclosures mandatory 

for 200 of New Zealand’s biggest 

businesses by 2023. 

It is likely that the Government 

will adopt the Climate 

Change Commission recommendations 

(there were over 

15,000 submissions on this), 

which, amongst many things, 

suggests that targets should be 

strengthened and our international 

agreements and commitments 

(such as the UN 

Climate Pledge and the Paris 

Agreement, to limit our global 

warming at 1.5°C) be revised 

and improved. 

Prime Minister Jacinda 

Ardern declared a climate 

emergency last year and set 

the target for 100 percent 

renewable energy by 2035. 

She confirmed that the Government 

would be revising the 

climate pledge this year, coupled 

with a draft carbon budget 

that sets targets for reduction. 

The draft carbon budget 

aims to ensure that New Zealand 

will emit 5.6 percent less 

greenhouse gases than it did 

in 2018, each year from 2022 

and 2025. Between 2026 and 

2030 the target will jump to 

14.7 percent for each year, and 

25.9 percent for every year 

between 2031 and 2035. 

The cost of being carbon 

neutral has been estimated 

by the Commission at around 

1 percent of projected GDP, 

or $190m a year over the 

next four years, $11.5 billion 

($2.3b a year) over the following 

five years and $21.5b 

($4.3b a year) from 2030-35. 

Another report by NZIER, 

suggests it could cost $85 

billion annually, 16% of projected 

GDP, by 2050. 

The cost of not doing anything 

is predicted to be much 

higher. In 2020, Deloitte 

reported that inaction on climate 

change could reduce 

Australia’s economy by 6 

percent, resulting in 880,000 

fewer jobs by 2070, losing 

A$3.4 trillion (NZ$3.6t) over 

the next 50 years. 

As these major and crucial 

changes are implemented, it 

is predicted that other sectors 

will also be obliged to report, 

track and offset their emissions. 

Now is the time for all 

businesses to start preparing 

for these changes. 

Deloitte Head of Strategy 

and Sustainability Deborah 

Lucas said, “companies which 

Rachael Goddard 

fail to deliver on climate 

change commitments could 

end up facing reputational 

damage and lost sales”. She 

also suggests that “companies 

who don’t act proactively 

could find themselves forced 

to change by legislation and 

regulation”. 

So, what can businesses do 

to prepare? 

There are numerous tools 

online that can assist, such as 

the SBN climate action toolbox, 

which is free. This can 

help you understand the areas 

you need to focus on and the 

carbon calculators that you 

can use to track greenhouse 

gas emitting activities: travel, 

waste, water, energy, accommodation, 

hire cars, possibly 

gases and freight. The next 

step is to produce a plan or 

strategy for setting targets 

and reducing emissions. This 

needs to involve and engage 

staff and be embedded into 

practices. Offsetting is not 

mandatory at this stage, but 

likely in the future. 

In 2018, a survey by IAG 

highlighted that climate 

change was important to 79 

percent of New Zealanders. 

There is no doubt that this 

is one of the most pressing 

and challenging issues of our 

time, and we will need to 

adapt and act. 

• Rachael Goddard is the 

director of ECOES, which 

specialises in sustainability 

planning, mapping, frameworks, 

and tracking greenhouse 

gas emissions.

Vetro marks 

eight months 

Wine, cheese, nibbles - that was the tasty 

fare with a Mediterrean flavour laid on by 

locally owned specialty food store Vetro 

Hamilton as it marked eight months of 

business in its spacious Rostrevor Street 

premises, with support from Hamilton 

Central Business Association. 

Co-owner Anna Greentree 

outlined a five year 

journey, starting when 

she and her husband shifted 

to Cambridge from Rotorua, 

where there was a Vetro store. 

“We were used to being 

able to get lovely, obscure and 

exciting ingredients.” 

They saw a gap in the market, 

reached out to the Napier-based 

Vetro founder and 

spent three years looking for a 

building before finally clinching 

their current site thanks 

to Mike Neale of NAI Harcourts. 

They are working with 

local suppliers including the 

Grumpy Baker, Red Cherry 

and Red Kitchen, and are also 

supplying some local cafes 

and restaurants. 

“And here we are, it's been 

a really cool journey. Ever 

since opening, we have very 

much felt a part of the Hamilton 

CBD,” Greentree said. 

Mike Neale, Vanessa Williams and Sam Chatterjee 

Vicky Redwood, Natalie Jessup and Andy Mannering Vicki Wallace, Graham Harkness and Andy Collins Anna Greentree and Jo Maxwell 

505 Grey Street 

Office 

space for 

Lease 

High profile city fringe 

modern office building 

on Bridge St corner site 

over 3 levels 

Ground floor Office: 

278m2 at $55.6k rent pa + opex 

1st floor Office: 

290m2 at $58k rent pa + opex 

Basement Carparking: 

9 parks + 3 on site at $35 pw 

Ring your local agent or 

owner on 0274742326


CONFERENCE AND EVENTS 

Claudelands 10-year 

re-opening anniversary 

Hamilton’s showpiece event venue is turning 10. 

Claudelands marks a decade of diversity in June, having hosted 

international sports teams, some of the music industry’s biggest 

names, as well as community events, corporate functions and 

trade shows. 

Sean Murray, Executive 

Director of H3 – the division 

of Hamilton City 

Council responsible for management 

of Claudelands – says 

the venue and the staff who 

manage the venue have built 

on the rich history of the site, 

welcoming close to 2.5 million 

attendees through the door for 

more than 2800 events over 

those 10 years. 

“We’re really proud of what 

we’ve delivered at Claudelands 

– from Bob Dylan and Ricky 

Martin to international netball 

and the Great New Zealand 

Beer Festival – so I can confidently 

say there really has 

been something for everyone. 

“And I think our community 

would agree.” 

Mr Murray says the wider 

impact Claudelands has on 

the city is significant: “The 

events we host are huge 

boosts for the local economy, 

with guests staying in 

nearby accommodation, dining 

out in local eateries and 

spending in shops. 

That makes a big difference 

to the city and regional 

economy, keeping people 

in jobs and contributing to 

The extensive 

transformation of 

Claudelands has 

given Hamilton 

a diverse hub 

for events. It has 

evolved the Hamilton 

events scene by 

providing a space 

with endless 

opportunity and 

versatility for event 

organisers and 

promoters. 

making Hamilton a interesting 

and lively city its residents are 

proud of.” 

The success of Claudelands 

– and the commitment and 

expertise of the H3 team – 

have earned the venue several 

industry accolades including 

the Event Venues Association 

Supreme Venue of the Year 

and Large Venue of the Year 

in 2014, and Large Venue of 

the Year for 2019. It’s also 

claimed a New Zealand Institute 

of Architects Award for 

the colour palette – a key feature 

of Claudelands striking 

exterior appearance. 

Previously the city’s harness 

racing venue, with an adjacent 

basic hangar-like building 

and stables, Claudelands has 

been hosting events since the 

late 1800s. The transformation 

of Claudelands into the 

modern multi-purpose events 

space – comprising an arena, 

conference and meeting rooms 

and exhibition halls – began 

in 2007 and took four years to 

compete. 

It was formally reopened in 

June 2011 by then-Mayor Julie 

Hardaker and hosted a public 

open day for the community 

to explore the new facility and 

its features – with an estimated 

12,000 people attending for a 

sneak preview. An essential 

element to the achievements 

and uniqueness of Claudelands 

is the people – past and present 

– who have contributed to the 

shaping and development of 

Claudelands Events Centre. 

“The H3 team has always 

strived to make Claudelands 

more than just a venue,” Mr 

Murray says. “We’ve always 

put a huge amount of effort 

into being accommodating, 

committed and affable to clients 

and guests - and leaving 

a lasting impression. The fact 

we’re seeing a lot of returning 

business and familiar 

faces in the crowd shows us 

we’re doing that. 

“The extensive transformation 

of Claudelands has 

given Hamilton a diverse hub 

for events. It has evolved the 

Hamilton events scene by providing 

a space with endless 

opportunity and versatility for 

event organisers and promoters,” 

Mr Murray says. 

Throughout the month of 

June, you can hear more about 

the achievements, milestones 

and enter in 10-year anniversary 

giveaways through the 

Claudelands Facebook and 

Instagram pages. 

Home to Hamilton’s premier events venues 

Contact us for all of your event needs w / h3group.co.nz


29 

Sleepyhead construction 

planned for 2023 

Craig Turner 

Construction is planned to start on the 

Sleepyhead Estate factory in Ohinewai in 

early 2023, with occupation mid-2024. 

The application to 

rezone 178 hectares 

of rural land owned 

by The Comfort Group at 

Ohinewai was approved in 

May by a Hearing Panel 

appointed by the Waikato 

District Council. 

The Comfort Group is 

Australasia’s largest bedding 

and foam manufacturer, and 

includes the Sleepyhead, 

SleepMaker and Dunlop 

Foams brands. 

The Sleepyhead Estate is a 

master-planned development 

at Ohinewai which comprises 

a $1.2 billion, 178-hectare 

manufacturing hub and 

residential community that 

would create up to 2,600 jobs 

in the area and provide up to 

1100 new homes, over the 

next 10 years. 

The Comfort Group, 

which has manufacturing 

facilities at Avondale and 

Otahuhu, will consolidate 

and expand its operations at 

the new Ohinewai site, which 

is adjacent to both SH1 and 

the North Island Main Trunk 

Railway. 

The company will also 

develop a residential community 

as part of the development 

to provide housing 

for the company’s staff, their 

families, and other residents. 

There will be more residential 

land than is needed to 

cater for Sleepyhead’s needs. 

Comfort Group director 

Craig Turner said the rezoning 

decision was a major 

milestone. 

“We want to create a legacy 

that will continue to add 

long term value not only to 

The Comfort Group but to 

the part of Waikato District, 

including Huntly, that we 

have chosen to make the new 

corporate home for The Comfort 

Group after nine decades 

in Auckland.” 

The construction timeline 

is dependent on earthworks 

and the compaction 

of the ground. Waikato 

Regional Council is considering 

whether to appeal the 

rezoning decision, and has 

We want to create 

a legacy that will 

continue to add long 

term value not only to 

The Comfort Group but 

to the part of Waikato 

District, including 

Huntly, that we have 

chosen to make the 

new corporate home 

for The Comfort Group 

after nine decades in 

Auckland. 

until July 12 to appeal the 

whole decision or part of 

the decision. 

Grants help boost economy 

Waikato Regional 

Council has 

approved its first 

grants from the regional 

development fund, with a 

combined total of $2.575 million 

going to two different 

projects. Hamilton-Waikato 

Tourism on behalf of the 

Waikato Screens project will 

get $575,000 over a three year 

period, and Ariki Tahi/Sugarloaf 

Wharf Ltd (ATSWL) will 

receive $2 million. 

Council Chair Russ Rimmington 

said the projects 

promised to deliver significant 

economic benefits to the 

region, including employment 

opportunities. 

An agreement will 

be signed with Hamilton-Waikato 

Tourism on 

behalf of Waikato Screens 

following decisions to award 

the grant in a public-excluded 

meeting at the end of April. 

The one-off grant of 

$575,000 will be distributed 

over three years to build 

capability as the Waikato’s 

regional film office. 

The goal is for the Waikato 

Screens project to actively 

promote the region as a place 

to film, as well as to work 

with the film industry scouting 

shoot locations. 

Councillors felt the benefits 

of the investment would 

be shared right across the 

Waikato. Hamilton constituency 

councillor Angela 

Strange acknowledged the 

work Waikato Screens had 

done already to attract three 

films to the region over the 

past eight months. 

“Imagine what more they 

could do with our support. 

I’m really excited by this proposal 

and can see that it will 

bring millions of dollars into 

the region, create jobs for 

locals as extras, and inspire 

young people,” she said. 

Taupō Rotorua constituency 

councillor Kathy White 

was pleased it would benefit 

a number of industries across 

the whole region. “Hospitality 

in particular has been hit 

hard by Covid-19 and this 

would be a real boost in that 

area,” she said. 

As with the Ariki Tahi 

Sugarloaf Wharf grant, there 

will be conditions prior to 

funding being released that 

Waikato Screens will need to 

meet, and further conditions 

following years one and two. 

The grant for the Waikato 

Screens project is a capability 

grant, so the additional 

monitoring and partnership 

approach over three years 

offers all parties assurance 

that the project will be supported 

as it progresses. 

Councillors heard that 

growth of the marine farming 

sector in the Coromandel 

Peninsula is contingent on 

appropriate wharf infrastructure 

to bring product ashore. 

The funding agreement to 

be signed with ATSWL will 

include a number of conditions, 

including a requirement 

that all consents are first 

approved before the grant is 

paid, as well as the setting of 

performance expectations. 

The expansion of Te 

Ariki Tahi/Sugarloaf Wharf 

will ensure the movement 

and processing of product 

through Thames-Coromandel 

and other districts. 

The activity is likely to 

grow ancillary service industries 

that are not in existence 

now or are currently at a very 

small scale, and often seasonal. 

“Our council’s funding 

will contribute to marine 

farmers having more confidence 

to invest in growing 

their on-water operations, 

rather than on the expansion 

of the wharf,” Rimmington 

said. 

“The potential to change 

lives, to boost the local and 

regional economy through 

this work, is the reason why 

this council has committed 

funds to it.” 

Central government threw 

their support behind the project 

last year with nearly $20 

million from the Provincial 

Growth Fund. 

The project to upgrade 

the wharf at Te Kouma will 

unlock approximately $822 

million of economic benefit 

over 35 years and is projected 

to support 880 jobs. 

Imagine what more 

they could do with 

our support. I’m 

really excited by this 

proposal and can 

see that it will bring 

millions of dollars 

into the region, 

create jobs for locals 

as extras, and inspire 

young people. 

Purpose PR the 

focus of awardwinning 

agency 

Hamilton-based public 

relations agency 

HMC was named the 

winner of the BusinessDesk 

PR Consultancy of the Year 

in the small-to-medium category 

at the Public Relations 

Institute of New Zealand 

(PRINZ) annual industry 

awards. 

The agency won the same 

award in 2018. 

HMC provides strategic 

communications and digital 

marketing services to companies 

in a wide range of industries 

from agriculture, dairy 

genetics, real estate, medical 

cannabis, skincare and more. 

Director Heather Claycomb 

says, “I’m so proud of 

our team. We are small but 

mighty and enjoy the privilege 

of working with some 

amazing clients across the 

Waikato and New Zealand. 

We are in our 17th year 

and continue to grow from 

strength to strength.” 

The 2020/21 financial 

year was the first full year 

the public relations agency 

operated as a social enterprise. 

“Two years ago I decided 

that 100 percent of profits 

from my business would be 

donated to my family charity, 

All Good Ventures. What 

this means is that HMC clients 

not only receive excellent 

PR services, they also 

get to partner with us to ‘do 

good’ in the world. Around 

the office we’ve coined the 

term for what we’re doing as 

‘Purpose PR.’” 

Claycomb’s family charity, 

All Good Ventures, is 

a registered New Zealand 

The HMC team, from left, Heather Claycomb (director), Rosie Miller, 

Kate Robinson and Antoinette Brandt (absent is Hariet Waffenschmidt). 

charity that provides money, 

mentorship and ‘muscle’ to 

support budding social entrepreneurs 

to start up businesses 

for good. 

New Zealand organisations 

supported by the charity 

over the past two years 

include Morningside Urban 

Market Garden by Grow 

Space, Whistlebox, The Good 

Karma Company, The Good 

Fale, Whistlebox and One- 

Day Health in Uganda. The 

PRINZ awards are designed 

to recognise outstanding 

public relations work and 

highlight the importance of 

good communications across 

every aspect of society. 

The PRINZ Awards 

gala dinner was held at the 

end of May at The Aotea 

Centre in Auckland.


Imitation is the highest form of flattery 

Copying can be a compliment but not when you’re in competition. 

But it happens because trends naturally evolve. So, is looking to 

your competitors acceptable or even advisable? 

Since the earliest days of 

retail stores and selling 

services, businesses have 

been taking on each other’s 

ideas. This is undoubtedly 

because they’ve seen how customers 

have reacted to their 

rivals’ marketing approaches, 

with open wallets. 

I can picture the Victorian 

gentlemen’s outfitter admiring 

new ornate golden swirls on 

the signage on his competitor’s 

window, then getting out 

his paintbrush to do the same. 

Or imagine being the first 

business to have put up a sign 

that wasn’t on the side of your 

building, but down the street 

instead? The first ever billboard 

must have really turned 

heads, but now look. 

Forever, businesses have 

studied their competitors’ marketing, 

branding and advertising 

and borrowed ideas. 

We look at successful businesses 

and try to identify what 

they’re doing to be ahead of 

the game. We look for inspiration 

and to see what the next 

trends will be. 

Marketing and advertising 

are more susceptible to the 

follies of fashion than pretty 

much any other business activity. 

We don’t need to be experts 

in human behaviour to know 

that people are attracted to the 

latest shiny new thing, the latest 

humour or styling. 

But equally, many businesses 

face the dilemma of not 

wanting to put off customers 

who feel safer in their comfort 

zone. We’re scared they won’t 

love our brands so much if we 

choose to tell our story differently. 

That comfortable space is 

not surprising. Many consumers 

like the familiar. We often 

don’t want to be challenged 

and can be suspicious of the 

maverick. 

For example, for many 

decades we expected a 

reserved formality in how 

banks and lawyers presented 

their services to us. Imagine 

how radical it must have been 

to be the first legal firm not to 

use a staunchly traditional copperplate-style 

font, or a colour 

other than dark blue or green? 

A prospective client would 

ask “Can I trust this firm with 

something so important when 

they look so different to the 

others?” 

In agency-land, a competitor 

audit has long been a starting 

point with any new client 

brief, whether it’s coming up 

with a new look or a marketing 

campaign. But, if you’re planning 

these things correctly, it 

should never be to copy, but to 

understand. 

A bit of research can give 

you a clearer picture of what 

has appealed to customers 

before, which is valuable, but it 

can also tell you want to avoid 

so as not be copying. 

Even if those law firms of 

TELLING YOUR STORY 

> BY VICKI JONES 

Vicki Jones is director of Dugmore Jones, Hamilton-based brand 

management consultancy. Email vicki@dugmorejones.co.nz 

old were known for having 

similar styles, for example, 

nowadays it’s better to steer 

clear of too much obvious 

similarity, especially if there’s 

only a few players in your marketplace. 

If an established local 

business like the one you’re 

launching is known for having 

red vans, have blue ones. Not 

only is it just the right thing to 

do, it’s your differentiator too. 

It’s a busy, over-crowded 

world in the design and marketing 

stratosphere and it’s 

hard to believe that there could 

be anything new in it. Most of 

what we see now is a slightly 

differently nuanced version 

of what’s gone before. When 

you’re struggling to come up 

with a creative idea that will 

make your business stand out, 

it can be incredibly disheartening. 

Businesses we admire for 

their branding, their creative 

approach or their marketing 

messages may attract us with 

only subtle differences from 

the rest of their competitors. 

But even if it is those slight 

nuances that make positive 

connections with our customers, 

for so many consumers 

now these connections are 

made as much by what businesses 

say as by how they say 

it. 

Increasingly, consumers 

make decisions around purpose 

and values, with authenticity 

being as much as a driver 

for falling in love with a brand 

as presentation and style. 

Understanding your competitors 

and keeping an eye 

on how they are telling their 

stories is still important, to 

keep your finger on the pulse 

of the environment in which 

you operate. Looking at your 

own business to understand the 

heart of your own story is even 

more valuable. 

You can’t share your own 

story authentically if you’re 

not nurturing it, if you’re too 

distracted by looking around 

you and reactively following 

trends. 

The less you truly understand 

your own brand story, 

the harder it is to reflect it in 

a way that your customers will 

connect with. If you don’t, 

your own competitors probably 

won’t be giving you a 

second thought. 

Foster’s investment in leadership 

is all about a better future 

Leadership is recognised, 

encouraged and celebrated 

at the Foster 

Group; strong leaders being 

key to the Foster 100-year 

vision for a sustainable and 

resilient business. The group 

is well invested in leadership 

training, currently rolling out 

a three-tier leadership programme 

in collaboration with 

Wintec. 

THE THEORY BEHIND 

THIS INITIATIVE IS TO 

GROW AND DEVELOP 

FUTURE LEADERS IN 

ALL LEVELS OF OUR 

BUSINESS, FORMING A 

POSITIVE CONNECTION 

BETWEEN OUR SENIOR 

LEADERS AND THOSE 

WHO ARE ON THE 

LEADERSHIP LADDER. 

They are also foundation 

sponsors of the Community 

and Enterprise Leadership 

Foundation (CELF) enabling 

6 senior leaders from Fosters 

and 6 Waikato community 

leaders to grow their leadership 

capability. 

Founded in 2019, Foster’s 

Leadership Programme has 

been modelled on the Fosters 

values and leadership culture 

– teaching future leaders ‘the 

Foster way’ and providing 

them with practical management 

tools and a pathway to 

leadership. 

“The theory behind this initiative 

is to grow and develop 

future leaders in all levels of 

our business, forming a positive 

connection between our 

senior leaders and those who 

are on the leadership ladder” 

says Foster COO Nigel Sun. 

“In essence, we’re wanting to 

ensure a total alliance around 

what leadership means and 

looks like.” 

The group recently celebrated 

the graduation of nine 

leaders from their inaugural 

Intermediate Leadership Programme. 

Intermediate graduates 

have been in leadership 

roles for a minimum of four 

years and represent different 

parts of the business, including 

Foster Construction, Foster 

Maintain, site managers 

and quantity surveying. Two 

of this group were from the 

Bay of Plenty and the rest 

from the Waikato. 

Foster’s Environmental, 

Health, Safety and Regulatory 

Co-ordinator Jade Walker 

was rapt at being selected 

for the leadership pathway. 

“Selection means that management 

holds you in high 

regard and that meant a lot to 

me” says Jade. 

“Also, Nigel knows I have 

aspirations to lead, and this 

supports me in that journey.” 

She adds that the course 

was challenging but highly 

beneficial. 

“I find myself using the 

tools in my daily work. I deal 

with some difficult situations, 

and it’s been so helpful to 

adopt tactical ways to have the 

difficult conversations.” 

Fosters CFO Lee Patchett 

reflects on his experience having 

completed CELF’s Elevate 

Leadership Programme 

in conjunction with the University 

of Waikato. 

The programme was 

specifically ‘designed for 

Foster’s 2021 Future Leaders Programme participants. (Left to right )Dylan Pemberton, Dexter 

Sutherland-Smith, Caz Marsh, Oliver Dent, Liam Cleland, Hendrix Pakoti, Jade Walker and Mitchell Sun 

regional impact’ – harnessing 

partnerships, nurturing 

diversity and inclusion and 

increasing regional prosperity 

- CELF works with local leaders 

to ‘reimagine a stronger 

Waikato’. 

“With CELF, you are 

reminded of the need to lead 

yourself, that is understanding 

your own character and how 

to apply your values, in order 

to lead others” says Lee. 

“It’s also an excellent 

opportunity to connect with 

other Waikato business and 

community leaders.”


31 

Hamilton entrepreneur inspires youth 

to follow cybersecurity career path 

When more than 150 hackers descend on the Waikato in July for 

the final competition of the University of Waikato’s Cyber Security 

Challenge 2021, one young Hamilton-based entrepreneur will be 

there to cheer them on and encourage them towards a career in 

cybersecurity. 

Ankita Dhakar, Managing 

Director of Hamilton-based 

SecurityLit, 

who established her business 

just 18 months ago, is passionate 

about making cybersecurity 

easy for businesses big or small 

and positioning cybersecurity 

as a rewarding job. 

After moving to New Zealand 

from India in 2015 Ankita 

saw a gap in the market to provide 

organisations with affordable 

cybersecurity services. 

Since then, she’s attracted nine 

team members – based in New 

Zealand, Hungary and India 

– who support businesses all 

around the world. SecurityLit 

focuses on vulnerability assessment 

and penetration testing 

for mobile, web and network 

applications. Ankita’s team has 

extensive experience in testing 

and finding vulnerabilities in 

large corporate networks and 

systems and help companies 

fight cyber-attacks. 

“The idea is that everyone 

in cyberspace – big or small 

– can operate confidently and 

securely. A lot of small businesses 

don’t have a budget for 

IT security, so I wanted to start 

educating small businesses and 

start-ups about cyber security 

threats and how they can protect 

themselves as they are at 

big risk,” says Ankita. 

I am delighted to 

be able to give 

back by supporting 

local businesses 

and by getting 

involved in this 

exciting challenge 

at the University of 


Ankita says New Zealand is 

facing a “cyber-pandemic”, because 

of COVID-19, with more 

businesses at risk following the 

increase in cloud computing 

and mobile technology use. 

With 97 percent of businesses 

in New Zealand small 

and medium sized enterprises 

(SMEs)*, and news that cyber-attacks 

reached a record 

high in 2020, statistics show 43 

percent of cyber-attacks target 

SMEs**. This not only results 

in financial loss to businesses, 

but also damages a company’s 

reputation and impacts the 

sector that makes a significant 

contribution to the New Zealand 

economy. Ankita is driven 

to change this. 

“We simplify cybersecurity 

for businesses and look 

at where their gaps are and 

help them become hole-proof. 

There’s a lot to be done in this 

space – cybersecurity isn’t a 

technology problem, it’s a human 

one. To compete against 

the army of hackers we need to 

build an army of good ethical 

hackers. So how do we build 

that army? By promoting cybersecurity 

awareness in the 

community, by educating people 

and by encouraging more 

people to join this sector.” 

Ankita, who is a finalist in 

the entrepreneur category of 

the Reseller News Women in 

ICT Awards (WIICTA), with 

Ankita Dhakar, Managing Director of Hamiltonbased 

SecurityLit, has a dream to see the Waikato 

become the Silicon Valley of New Zealand. 

the winners set to be announced 

on 8 July, has recently appointed 

two interns at SecurityLit as 

part of her drive to encourage 

more people to consider cybersecurity 

as a career path. 

“If people choose a career in 

cybersecurity they are contributing 

to society. I want more 

people to join the cyber security 

industry and help SMEs 

in New Zealand as there is a 

serious skill shortage in this industry. 

It’s a rewarding career,” 

says Ankita. 

Ankita moved to New Zealand 

when she was just 22, 

and while studying towards 

her degree in business administration 

and management, she 

worked part time as a retail assistant 

at Number One Shoes 

in Auckland before working 

in a variety of office and 

administration roles. 

“When I moved to New Zealand, 

I knew no-one, I was driven 

and determined to start my 

own business. I moved to Hamilton 

as I wanted to collaborate 

with the University of Waikato, 

which was the first university 

in New Zealand to provide a 

Masters Degree in Cyber Security. 

I didn’t have many connections 

when I first arrived, 

but I’ve developed them, and 

taken on some local clients, 

as well as aligned myself with 

groups in the community that I 

feel passionate about supporting.” 

Backing the University 

of Waikato’s Cyber Security 

Challenge 2021 (NZCSC’21) 

as a Platinum Sponsor is another 

way for Ankita and her team 

to give back to the community. 

SecurityLit has designed 

challenges for the hackathon’s 

Round 0 and Round 1 for high 

school students, tertiary students 

and industry members 

from across New Zealand. The 

competition is taking place this 

month and the final two rounds 

(rounds 1 and 2) will take 

place at Waikato University 

on 17 July. 

“I’ve come a long way in six 

years. I’ve gone from new arrival 

in New Zealand to student 

and shoe salesperson to business 

owner. I’ve learnt so much 

and the people of this country 

have been so good to me,” says 

Ankita. 

“Now I am delighted to be 

able to give back by supporting 

local businesses and by 

getting involved in this exciting 

challenge at the University 

of Waikato – giving back 

to the Waikato community 

is the least I can do. It is my 

dream to see Waikato become 

the Silicon Valley of New Zealand 

and I am working hard 

towards my dream.” 

Website: www.securitylit.com 

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“ 

Fosters want 

their team to 

succeed. They’ve 

offered me 

career security 

by identifying 

areas for me 

to develop as 

a leader in the 

construction 

industry. 

Dexter Sutherland-Smith 

4th Year Apprentice Carpenter 

Why Dexter chooses to work at Fosters... 

P we recognise his potential and offer 

him a career pathway 

P we are committed to developing our 

people and promoting from within 

P we provide our team with confidence that 

they have a future at Fosters 

If you value being 

valued, join our 

community. 

fosters.co.nz/careers 

P we empower our team to ‘dream big’

Waikato Business News May/June 2021

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