Mayor Tania Gibson's Inaugural Speech
I welcome and congratulate you all at the start of this new term of the Grey District Council. It’s great to see everyone back, and I’d like to extend a special welcome to our new Council member, Councillor Birchfield, who unfortunately cannot be here today but will be sworn in on Monday.
As many of you have served on this team before, some for multiple terms, you know all too well the challenges we face, but also the achievements we’ve made and the projects we have underway.
Our significant project, the new Library and Community Hub, continues to progress well, with our local builders and tradespeople doing an excellent job in delivering what will be an important new asset for our district and future generations. This project will not only serve our community but also contribute to the revitalisation of our CBD and encourage new development. It’s exciting to see this momentum continue, with Ngāti Waewae, our partners next door, announcing their new building, and with future developments being planned by Mawhera.
In our Long Term Plan, we have all agreed that infrastructure renewal remains our top priority. With our aging networks, we have extensive forward planning in place for renewals, which will now move ahead in collaboration with our regional partners under Local Water Done Well.
We have made significant upgrades over the years in the three waters space, but we all know this is not enough. Like councils across the country, we continue to face real challenges. We must always keep affordability at the front of our minds for our residents and communities, while also using this term to advocate strongly for what the future holds for local government, particularly here on the West Coast.
It’s vital that we continue to work together regionally, to have these conversations and to advocate as one voice to government as we have been doing through the Mayors, Chairs and Iwi of the West Coast, with our Regional Deal proposals and royalty discussions. There is extensive work already done in that space that has set up the foundations for the way forward.
Our ratepayers simply cannot sustain constant rate rises, yet we must still invest in the infrastructure needed for now and for future generations. The challenge before us is finding a way to ease the burden on our small rating base, both here in the Grey District and across the Coast and I hope, by working together, we can make real progress on that.
We must also look at the exciting opportunities that are building across the West Coast. There are currently around 1,200 new employment roles being developed in the minerals industry. This in turn creates more economic growth, new jobs in other sectors, and wider opportunities for our region.
Yesterday, I attended the Minerals Conference and listened to Minister Shane Jones and industry representatives talk about the many exciting projects in the pipeline. Fantastic news is that Terra Firma have now received their exploration permits and are working on the way forward which alone is predicted to create over 50 new jobs.
We need to continue working closely with our partners to support and encourage housing and economic development. As a Council, we must help people through these processes — not hold them back. We need to find ways to move projects forward, not ways not to, and I send a strong message to our teams that this is the direction we must take. We know the process can be challenging, but wherever possible we need to remove roadblocks and make things easier for those investing in our district.
Over the years, we’ve had our ups and downs, but I’m confident in the direction we’re heading. Jo is doing a fantastic job in the Chief Executive role, and we now have a strong, focused leadership team who are working well together and listening to direction.
You’ll see that committees and positions have been kept relatively the same this term. That’s deliberate, to maintain continuity and stability in the gains we’ve made and the direction we’re continuing in.
I still maintain that we live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, and we are incredibly lucky to call it home. There is so much opportunity and positive growth ahead for the West Coast, and we must always keep that in mind as we make decisions for our future generations.
I look forward to working with you all over the next three years. We have some hard work ahead of us, but we’re focused, capable, and have a good foundation to build on.
Finally, thank you to everyone who took the time to vote in the local elections. It is a privilege to serve you, and I’m excited about what we can achieve together in this new term.
