Crux - The Podcast

Central Otago has a new mayor, and it is Vincent Ward councillor and community board chair Tamah Alley.

Mayor Alley took over from three-term mayor Tim Cadogan, who vacated the role in favour of a new job with national water regulator Taumata Arowai in Wellington.

The former police constable, mother of three, and Alexandra local was appointed mayor by fellow district councillors at a full meeting of the council in Alexandra on October 30th.

In her first long form interview she discusses age, gender and democracy and how she craves a strongly contested mayoral race next year in the local body elections. She also talks in detail about the relationship at the CODC between elected members and the executive leadership team. The contrast with the Queensotwn Lakes District Council could not be more dramatic.

Speaking after her election, Mayor Alley thanked the councillors for "trusting" her "to take the hot seat".

"We have our work cut out for us. This is a really tough time to be in local government, but that's also because it's a tough time to be in business in schools, in a job and in a family. We need to be passionate about making democracy work, and will carry on around this table despite the unusual circumstances of me sitting at this end.”

In this wide ranging discussion Peter Newport discusses with the new mayor her views on local body elections, Cromwell/Alexandra rivalry, the contentious issue of the Cromwell “land grab”, the future of local Government and what makes a good mayor.

In a wide ranging Crux podcast Dunedin City councillor Jim O'Malley has identified "self confidence" as the missing ingredient for Dunedin to achieve its full potential. Councillor O'Malley also tells Crux that if Queenstown "really wants to destroy those valleys - keep going".

Councillor O'Malley is the influential chair of the DCC's infrastructure committee with a strong background in academia and the international pharmaceutical industry. He told Crux that his former employer, Pfizer, at one stage cut staff from 300,000 people to 100,000 people. "Two thirds of the staff got laid off."

"Large pharmaceutical companies are not immoral. They are amoral. To some extent amoral is more dangerous than immoral. Big organisations become less efficient and rely on bureaucracy to function. I worked on an important drug for five years that would have helped people all over the world, but it got cut at just one marketing meeting."

Crux asked if there were any lessons for local councils from big corporations.

"In order to exist as an entity, the big corporations have to be very bureaucratic. And so the challenge of a bureaucracy is that when you get down to the lowest level of management, have you cared for humanity? That's really what it is.

"In the case of the council, if you can let a unit perform properly and do its thing, they'll be happy in their job and they'll be doing their job well. Most council workers, I would argue, are at the council actually, because they have a sense of social ethics.

"The bureaucracy has to be enabling and cannot be in any way getting in the way. I've always watched the bureaucracy, and this is probably the role of the council, in my opinion."

Councillor O'Malley reckons that Dunedin is in the middle of a renaissance.

"We've been in a renaissance period for about four or five years. The Dunedin businesses that are emerging are high productivity businesses. They're bringing a decent amount of money into the city. We've been a medium growth city now for about six years. The sense of death and decay that was here in the 90s and the early 2000s is largely gone. And I would also say that the people who were perpetrating that myth are also gone, thank God.

"A lot of people will say in Dunedin, there are two personality types. There definitely are, in my opinion. There is (one) progressive. Let's make the city as best we can. The city can be amazing. And there's another group (two) saying don't spend a cent. The city's dying. I don't want to do anything. And that group dominated the 1990s and early 2000s and they almost killed the city in my opinion. We've been investing in ourselves continuously since then. And it's visible now."

It's been hard to ignore. The 2024 Queenstown Writers Festival is bigger than ever and starts soon - October 31 to November 3.

This week we are in conversation with festival chair Tanya Surrey.

She's a lawyer and our interview reveals an undeniable bias towards the crime genre, but there's also a dazzling cornucopia of other writing - fiction, non-fiction, children's books, history - you name it and it's part of the 2024 Queenstown Writers Festival.

Ms Surrey not only describes some of her personal favourites but takes us on a walk through the rest of the programme (You can browse the programme here and - and buy tickets).

It's been hard to ignore. The 2024 Queenstown Writers Festival is bigger than ever and starts soon - October 31 to November 3.

This week we are in conversation with festival chair Tanya Surrey.

She's a lawyer and our interview reveals an undeniable bias towards the crime genre, but there's also a dazzling cornucopia of other writing - fiction, non-fiction, children's books, history - you name it and it's part of the 2024 Queenstown Writers Festival.

Ms Surrey not only describes some of her personal favourites but takes us on a walk through the rest of the programme (You can browse the programme here and - and buy tickets).

Also this week, Kim Bowden discusses the surprising reemergence of a Ngāi Tahu hot pools project - up at the controversial Lakeview site. There's Queenstown Lakes District Council reserve land involved and we wonder if that is a point of some significance.

Plus, we look at a property developer who's trying to contribute money to funding Queenstown infrastructure and is finding the QLDC to be not particularly interested - go figure!

We also check out the Crux 2024 QLDC council satisfaction survey - currently sitting at four percent and still open. How low can they go?

Speaking to Crux on the day of our Dunedin launch Mayor Jules Radich has confessed his disappointment over the council's decision not to sell Aurora and also shared his frustration with the Queenstown Lakes District and Central Otago Otago District mayors for not throwing their full weight behind the Dunedin hospital campaign.

Mayor Radich says eight out of ten regional mayors have fully supported the campaign for a new Dunedin hospital but Queenstown's Glyn Lewers and CODC's Tim Cadogan were instead "looking to see what they can get for their own district."

"A new Dunedin hospital, a tertiary hospital, is for the benefit of the entire lower south island. Certainly Central Otago and the Southern Lakes need some of their own secondary facilities, but Dunedin has to be the main centre for advanced, tertiary medical needs."

"The combination of the hospital, the university and the medical school produces access to all types of advanced medical skills for Dunedin and that's what you need - a full range of specialists and specialist support staff, not just doctors and nurses."

"We are only 10% into the 2024 Dunedin hospital battle so far - there's much more to come."

The mayor also said that he still supported the sale of Aurora to cut down council debt, adding that he was surprised at the level of emotion and the scale of opposition to the sale. "Debt levels will be higher as a result - we have to turn this ship around. Council debt is highly problematic."

The Crux Dunedin podcast also discusses the possibility of a unitary authority that could help share some of the Otago Regional Council's relative wealth across all of the region's local Government bodies.

RealNZ's recently arrived CEO Dave Beeche has hit the ground running in terms of the challenges of balancing growth and conservation as well as the value of authenticity compared to too much packaging and hype. RealNZ runs many of our top tourism operations from the Earnslaw, Walter Peak station and Cardrona to Milord/Doubtful Sound cruises and the ferry to Stewart Island/Rakiura. 

Mr Beeche talks with Crux managing editor Peter Newport about a pivotal moment in Europe this year where he saw the value of limiting visitor numbers and charging for access to popular tourism attractions. In this case it was a famous coastal walk on the Italian coast where he got engaged more than 20 years earlier.

Mr Beeche also reveals that he was a "mystery shopper" on various RealNZ trips before making a final decision to take on the CEO job - and that this did not all go quite according to plan. 

The podcast interview touches on what the next five years may look like for tourism, how to improve the Queenstown CBD, the role of conservation within RealNZ and how he reckons (admittedly as a former Aucklander) that our local traffic is not that bad.

Plus Kim Bowden discusses the top stories of the week - that Otago Regional Council rates increase that somehow was a lot more than the expected 16 percent, the local fast track projects that not everybody welcomes, and the Crux project that replaces the missing council performance questions in this year's QLDC Quality of Life Survey. 

RealNZ's recently arrived CEO Dave Beeche has hit the ground running in terms of the challenges of balancing growth and conservation as well as the value of authenticity compared to too much packaging and hype. RealNZ runs many of our top tourism operations from the Earnslaw, Walter Peak station and Cardrona to Milord/Doubtful Sound cruises and the ferry to Stewart Island/Rakiura. 

Mr Beeche talks with Crux managing editor Peter Newport about a pivotal moment in Europe this year where he saw the value of limiting visitor numbers and charging for access to popular tourism attractions. In this case it was a famous coastal walk on the Italian coast where he got engaged more than 20 years earlier.

Mr Beeche also reveals that he was a "mystery shopper" on various RealNZ trips before making a final decision to take on the CEO job - and that this did not all go quite according to plan. 

The podcast interview touches on what the next five years may look like for tourism, how to improve the Queenstown CBD, the role of conservation within RealNZ and how he reckons (admittedly as a former Aucklander) that our local traffic is not that bad.

This week's Crux podcast guest is the Central Otago District Council's deputy mayor, Neil Gillespie, who has ruled himself out of the current mayoral race saying  he enjoys his job with Contact Energy, volunteering for the fire brigade, and he wants "to stay married".

Mayor Tim Cadogan announced his surprise resignation earlier this week meaning that councillors will have to agree an interim mayor later this month.

Councillor Gillespie tells Crux he does not believe it is important whether the new mayor, interim or permanent, comes from Cromwell or Alexandra.

"I'm not convinced that really matters...I've been involved in local government since 1998, so I've been around a long time. What I've learned is that I get one vote and so does the mayor."

While he concedes the mayor does get to lead a group of councillors, he thinks that is no guarantee they can sway any vote.

"For many years I chaired the Cromwell Community Board, that's a leadership role, and you just don't get your own way.

"You get a chance maybe to trumpet your views more than others, perhaps give things a nudge. But at the end of the day, you've got one vote. And if someone else is going to cancel your vote out, then it's up to the others. That's where the democracy part comes into it."

He stresses councillors should come to the table with a district-wide lens. He also says there's been some misunderstanding over proposed changes taking land and resources away from the Cromwell Community Board, adding that Cromwell endowment land will remain to the exclusive benefit of Cromwell.

"My role as a councillor is to look at the big picture for the district. So it doesn't matter that I've been elected from a ward, I don't actually represent the ward's issues. I've got to consider those issues, obviously. But I've got to then weigh it up against the what is the right thing for the district."

Crux asked Councillor Gillespie if the next mayor of the CODC would come from Cromwell.

"There's no reason why not. There is absolutely no reason why not. But we've got to find the person that's got the time and the inclination to to do that. And I don't think it's going to make a blind bit of difference as to where the mayor comes from to be perfectly honest, and it shouldn't make any difference."

Councillor Gillespie also says that the rather awkward term "districtisation" is being dropped by CODC in favour of the more easy to understand "district funding".

In this week's podcast Kim Bowden and Peter Newport also discuss the top stories of the week including Mayor Tim Cadogan's resignation, Air New Zealand's regional flight reductions, Otago University's move into the district, and a brand new cycle trail.  

This week's Crux podcast guest is the Central Otago District Council's deputy mayor, Neil Gillespie, who has ruled himself out of the current mayoral race saying  he enjoys his job with Contact Energy, volunteering for the fire brigade, and he wants "to stay married".

Mayor Tim Cadogan announced his surprise resignation earlier this week meaning that councillors will have to agree an interim mayor later this month.

Councillor Gillespie tells Crux he does not believe it is important whether the new mayor, interim or permanent, comes from Cromwell or Alexandra.

"I'm not convinced that really matters...I've been involved in local government since 1998, so I've been around a long time. What I've learned is that I get one vote and so does the mayor."

While he concedes the mayor does get to lead a group of councillors, he thinks that is no guarantee they can sway any vote.

"For many years I chaired the Cromwell Community Board, that's a leadership role, and you just don't get your own way.

"You get a chance maybe to trumpet your views more than others, perhaps give things a nudge. But at the end of the day, you've got one vote. And if someone else is going to cancel your vote out, then it's up to the others. That's where the democracy part comes into it."

He stresses councillors should come to the table with a district-wide lens. He also says there's been some misunderstanding over proposed changes that appear to potentially take land and resources away from the Cromwell Community Board, adding that Cromwell endowment land will remain to the exclusive benefit of Cromwell.

"My role as a councillor is to look at the big picture for the district. So it doesn't matter that I've been elected from a ward, I don't actually represent the ward's issues. I've got to consider those issues, obviously. But I've got to then weigh it up against the what is the right thing for the district."

Crux asked Councillor Gillespie if the next mayor of the CODC would come from Cromwell.

"There's no reason why not. There is absolutely no reason why not. But we've got to find the person that's got the time and the inclination to to do that. And I don't think it's going to make a blind bit of difference as to where the mayor comes from to be perfectly honest, and it shouldn't make any difference."

Councillor Gillespie also says that the rather awkward term "districtisation" is being dropped by CODC in favour of the more easy to understand "district funding".

On the Crux podcast this week Cromwell resident James Dicey gets stuck into the Central Otago District Council over what he sees as the Alexandra-based council being "the tail wagging the dog", where "technocrats and bureaucrats" are driving a process that ignores the wishes of Cromwell residents.

Mr Dicey, now an influential winemaker but also a qualified lawyer and accountant, tells Crux that he believes the value of Cromwell land being taken from local community board control by the CODC (the so-called 'districtisation') could well be worth up to half a billion dollars when developed. 

He describes the history of tensions between Cromwell and Alexandra being the result of a forced marriage when local government reforms were put in place many years ago.

It's a fascinating history of two towns on divergent paths and Mr Dicey worries that it will be hard to use local elections to produce any real change in what he sees as a CODC agenda to take money and control away from the people of Cromwell. 

"It's a gross misrepresentation. It's been blurred. It's been muddied. No one actually really quite knows or understand exactly what the implications are. They don't really understand what the potential risks are because it's been fudged all the way through - intentionally, in my view, to make it very difficult for people to understand exactly what they've given up or what the council has taken back from the community.

"We don't really actually know how it's going to be used and abused."

Also this week, Crux managing editor Peter Newport and Kim Bowden discuss the big story of the week - Queenstown Lakes District Council chief executive Mike Theelen getting a 15.5 percent pay rise, plus the consideration of a bed tax by the CODC.