This election advertorial is published by commercial arrangement
I’m sure everyone remembers the bad joke from ten or fifteen years ago that the last person to leave Invercargill should switch the lights out. Our city was in decline, with a fast-falling population and a city centre that had seen better days.
Well, you don’t hear them laughing now. Invercargill has turned a corner; we have a revitalised central city, our population is growing, and our economy is as strong as any part of New Zealand.
Over the last five years, citizens—acting as individuals or collectively through rates—have invested in the central city, and that has been a major factor in transforming our fortunes. I support investment decisions like Invercargill Central, the Esk and Don streetscapes, Wachner Place, and the Museum. Those projects also encouraged commercial investment, including two new hotels. It had to be done to stop the city’s decline—and it worked.
In my view, Invercargill is now in the best position it’s been in for forty years, and the future looks bright.
But that capital investment has inevitably fed into rate increases, arriving at the same time as a broader cost-of-living crisis—doubling the pain for homeowners.
So, the new building phase has to be over for at least five years. There are significant infrastructure projects left to do, but that should be it for capital works funded by ratepayers. Affordability of rates and efficiency savings within ICC itself will be the priority of any council I lead, and I support the Government’s proposed capping of rate rises. Council will need to hold every dollar hostage and make 80 cents do the work of a dollar.
Not every improvement needs capital, nor does everything need to be done by Council. This pause will let Council focus on other non-capital priorities: tackling youth unemployment and homelessness, making it easier and cheaper to build through planning rule changes, beautification through flower planting, and so on.
Invercargill will continue to flourish, and more people will want to live here… but maybe we don’t issue visas to those who laughed at that joke ten years ago.
Authorised by agent Cath Campbell: [email protected]