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.