'Jury out' on Hawke's Bay decline

Wairoa Mayor Craig Little says rural centres can be masters of their destiny.

Predictions of inevitable Hawke's Bay economic and social decline are wrong, says Wairoa Mayor Craig Little.

He was responding to a Maxim Institute report predicting long-term population decline for regions including Hawke's Bay, while big cities grew.

It said central government had a broad-brushed focus on economic growth for the whole country, when a managed decline would be more appropriate with social outcomes prioritised.

Wairoa is a microcosm for Hawke's Bay's demographic challengers, but Mr Little said he did not believe in "the doom and gloom" and Wairoa was the master of its destiny.

"We are fighting all odds in Wairoa and coming up with some pretty good results," he said.

A BERL report said its population was no longer in decline and Mr Little said if central government supported gave targeted growth to the regions "we would be absolutely humming".

He said Napier MP Stuart Nash did a good job engaging with the community but government Ministers mainly visited Wairoa District for Treaty of Waitangi settlement signings.

An exception was then-Minister for Economic Development Steven Joyce, who attended the opening of Rocket Lab's satellite-launching site.

"We have had no Ministers come to talk to us at this council, to see how they can do things better," Mr Little said.

"They need to get out to their rural areas, sit down with their mayors, sit down with their councillors, and listen."

Wairoa District Council was driving economic growth programmes and developing a community committee "that gets down to the nitty-gritty of what is coming into our community and who it is going to".

Mr Little said the district had to get behind the Regional Economic Development Strategy (REDS) because that was the only way central government would look at rural areas.

"We have to get more serious with it and make sure the right people are inputting what needs to be done for the strategy."

The author of Rebooting the Regions, Massey University Pro Vice-Chancellor Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, said the "jury was out" on the effectiveness of REDS.

Napier and Hastings were "in sharp contrast" to Wairoa, Waipukurau and Waipawa which were facing considerable outward migration and population ageing.

He said REDS was an experiment with ambitious targets and Hawke's Bay was lucky to be chosen for it, but it would take five years to judge its effectiveness in "disrupting the democratic trend and economic implications".

Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce CEO Wayne Walford agreed with the Maxim Institute's report in that the future was uncertain but said Hawke's Bay needed to be "awake and aware and stop holding on to old systems".

"They are going to disappear before our eyes and if we are not careful that will drive negative growth."

He cited the KPMG report Magnet Cities on cities in a spiral of decline that grew their "magnetic pull" to attract "wealth creators".

Mr Walford said the development of broadband and "trendy, sexy big-city stuff" such as a cafe and gastronomy culture in Hawke's Bay were two ways it was becoming more attractive to people who drove more economic growth.

"Wealth creators don't necessarily need to be in the big cities - we have to drive that interest."