ADVOCATE COLUMN 4th WEEK JULY 2012

Congratulations to Mike Sabin for organising his recently held the Whole of Northland Economic Summit. This consisted of two separate seminars at which over 200 attendees from various sectors throughout Northland met to discuss those things that could enable economic growth and those things within our control that currently inhibit growth. The objective being to develop a plan of action that will allow Northland to lift its economic –and social- performance to a level that is comparable to the rest of the country. While it would be unrealistic to expect that at the completion of these two seminars the participants would have arrived at a fully resolved plan of action, it was encouraging to see the progress made and the level of support that Mr Sabin had garnered from his parliamentary colleagues for this projct. The presence of a number of key cabinet ministers was evidence that there is a willingness from central government to work with regions to grow their economies. There were a number of underlying themes that emerged during the two days and these were reasonably consistent across sectors. Foremost among these was the need for Northlanders to adopt a more collaborative approach to raise their performance and the for local government regulations to be business friendly and enabling of economic development. Neither of these was a surprise and they are regularly seen as critical drivers to us achieving our potential. It is also timely that they have again been raised as the subject of Northland’s future structure of local government is under scrutiny. While the existing structure of three districts and one regional council do not preclude collaboration and although all councils express a desire for it to occur, in last year’s “Local Government Options for Northland” report prepared by Sir Peter Trapski and Dr Don Brash, Sir Peter stated they saw little evidence of collaboration. There was also overwhelming support amongst those I spoke with during the seminars that there be a single plan for the whole of Northland that provides certainty and enables development. When considering changes to local government it will be important to examine all options available with an open mind and a strong focus on what we wish to achieve. Neither collaboration nor a single plan is reliant on structural organisational change within local government but in many cases it may be easier to bring about if there was a change.