Thought Leadership shaping the future of our region
An occasional platform for a piece written by members for members on key topics to challenge and inform robust debate about the Waikato.
What are we waiting for: The future is ours to make
It was no fluke. In February this year, media reported that Hamilton overtook Tauranga as New Zealand’s fastest growing city for the first time. And now the latest figures reported this month say we’ve done it again. 3.1% more people are living in the Tron than the same time last year. According to Statistics NZ and the University of Waikato we’re on track to overhaul Wellington as New Zealand’s second largest city somewhere between 2048 and 2058. But personally, I think we’ll get there a lot quicker - we are the only ones who can stop it from happening – if we choke.
So, in this article I want to outline the things we can do to secure our position. Auckland and Tauranga are hemmed in on an isthmus – their constraints are our opportunities.
Productive infrastructure
As a city and region, we focus a lot on social infrastructure such as Claudelands and the new theatre in Victoria Street. But, as a community, we rarely focus on the productive infrastructure we need for economic growth first so we can afford the social facilities. Just like they say on the airline health and safety videos – put on your own oxygen mask before you help others – productivity needs to come before pleasure if we really want to be able to afford to pay for it.
One example of productive infrastructure would be that we need to move heaven and earth to get a major data centre into Hamilton. This is a burgeoning sector of infrastructure where we need to wet our beaks. We have the room to grow, relative seismic stability and the major transmission lines that transect the edge of our city. These high-spec facilities could keep our construction sector engaged for years and facilitate new high value industries and employment. Upgrading the network to allow more of the electricity generated here to be supplied to our region is a major priority.
Regional connections
Secondly, we need to build out our road and rail connections to the Upper North Island. Based on current progress, repairs on the Hamilton-Taupiri section of the Waikato Expressway may actually never finish. So, we need to get better at building roads of national significance, and hopefully, the extension of the dual laning won’t stop at Piarere and will eventually carry on to Tauranga. These roads are literal economic arteries in our rapidly growing golden triangle.
We should also be looking at examples around the world of the role of fast, reliable passenger rail and its role in regional development as well as the economic models supporting investment. I am not dreaming about 320km per hour Shinkansen-style trains of Japan, just the well-run trains you see servicing the outer Melbourne commuter belt.
The brave growth decisions our region needs are unlikely to gain traction unless there is further amalgamation of local authorities. We really need some boundary realignment for Hamilton City to enable orderly development for the future city of half a million people and to move our thinking beyond the current developer belt. If local government can’t sort it out, then Central government need to be the ones to do it. Multiple planning frameworks equals slower and more expensive growth – it’s driving up the cost of the housing and we can’t afford the turf wars.
Visitor magnet
Our region enjoys some of New Zealand’s coolest visitor attractions in Hobbiton, Hamilton Gardens, the Waitomo Caves and Raglan – but we’re short a major draw card attraction in our city.
World class gardens – and we do have them – are table stakes. Where’s our Te Papa North, our Peter Jackson movie experience, or cultural tourism experience to draw in an extra three hundred thousand visitor nights per year to supercharge the accommodation and hospitality sector?
Opportunities regularly arise, but to date we have lacked the imagination and focus to make it stick.
Global opportunities
In wrapping up these thoughts I’d like to touch on global geo-political dividend that’s coming our way. There has been a lot of focus on the economic risks to New Zealand from an unstable world, but what about the opportunities? Many security sensitive businesses such as microchip manufacturers, will be looking to move sensitive facilities further away from obvious fracture zones in the region where world powers grind together like tectonic plates.
New Zealand is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence family. It has to bring some benefits – and one of them can be as a trusted locality for sensitive technology production. We already have quality electronics manufacturers in Hamilton, and scope to see more. We have a strong and growing technology sector, and 75% of our population growth in the past year has been from international migration into Hamilton – so we know we can grow and import the work force. Our time zone works perfectly to provide out of office services to the United States and Europe.
Nvidia II in East Hamilton? You bet. We have the space, the juice, the university – and we also have the time zone to be America’s back office, not just Wellington’s.
The future is ours to make.
Five reasons why the Waikato is onto a winner
By Chris Joblin
Head down slogging through the spring – whether it’s on the farm, a construction site, or downtown in a corporate office in central Hamilton - it’s easy to lose the sight of all the great things we have going for us. As I get ready to wrap up my role as CEO of a significant value creator for our region, I’m letting loose with my five reasons why I think the Waikato is on to a winner, and our moment in the sun is fast dawning. Here we go:
1. We’re part of a love triangle. Hold your tea. It’s another way of talking about the increasing interdependence of Auckland-Hamilton-Tauranga. Each area has the opportunity to concentrate on its strengths and not feel so much need to go head-to-head on everything. The Waikato is the really productive engine-room in this economic troika, sitting alongside New Zealand’s most multi-national city Auckland and the Bay of Plenty that does well in all the lifestyle beauty parades. Waikato’s strengths lie in our ability to unlock constraints of both Auckland and Tauranga, their weaknesses will be to Waikato’s benefit.
2. Geographically, we’ve got the right moves. – The Waikato Expressway really put us on the map. From here you can cruise to Auckland in 90 minutes, Tauranga in less and punch down to Taupo and Taranaki or beyond. Like the drafting gate in a sheep race, it makes us an attractive place for distribution and logistics – you can draft your cargoes every which way. That was the thinking behind the formation of the Ruakura Superhub. Not everyone got it at first but now those really large previously out-of-town businesses like Maersk, Kmart and Big Chill are there to prove the point. This month’s news of new direct flight connections with the Gold Coast and Sydney puts the Aussie versions of Vegas right on our doorstep too.
3. We’re seen as relatively stable. I’m not talking about political stability here but rather the geotech kind. Earthquakes are an unforgiving reality in New Zealand. Scientists (and many others) live in fear of a major movement in the Alpine Fault, transecting the country from Milford Sound out through the top of the South Island and exiting the country like a bullet wound around Napier/Hastings and out to the Hikurangi Trench. It’s not a question of if but when – hopefully a long, long time. Tragic events such as the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes provide a glimpse of the reality and in my various property development roles I’ve noticed a distinct trend for government agencies and internationals to cover their bases with new offices in what is perceived as a more benign seismic environment in the Waikato. One of the things I’ve learnt is never say never – but if we can be that resilient province, let’s do it.
4. Plenty of smart cookies. Waikato has provided smart science to the country since, well, practically forever. In comparatively recent years, notably with the establishment of the Ruakura training and research centre in 1888, our region began to further expand its reputation for excellence in agricultural science. It’s a space we still excel at today with the likes of Dairy NZ, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Gallagher and others. I wanted to say Halter too – but that was one that got away. Its founder Craig Piggott grew up on a dairy farm in the Waikato and obviously nurtured the idea here. It just got away on us when he headed up the road to the University of Auckland and then Rocket Lab. Today we have new generations of smart cookies here such as the teams at Aware Group, Company-X, and Dynamo6 carrying the tech torch into the cloud-distributed, AI-enabled, digital-distance.
5. Stealth moves. As everyone knows – even The Chiefs – the world loves a stealth move and the Waikato has them in spades. Every time we show an out-of-town guest to the Ruakura Superhub it bowls them over. We deliver great infrastructure (and delivered it on an Australasian scale.) Entities like Rabobank NZ, Maersk and Kmart obviously cottoned on to the Tron, and others are on their way. Besides, don’t tell Tauranga, we are actually a secret slayer on the lifestyle front. From the world-class left hander breaking on the rocks at Manu Bay to the bush clad solitude of New Chums beach in the Coromandel. It’s all in our region and we should celebrate it. Credit where it's due: we also have an awesome hospitality scene led by some world-class eateries in Palate, Chim Choo Ree and Gothenburg.
Thanks for bearing with my reckons on this fantastic region where we live. My next column (second of three) will lean into three economic areas where the Waikato needs to wet its beak.
