South's flag-bearer out to attract cup tourists

By Jeremy Rees

Tim Shadbolt, once Mayor of Waitemata, now Mayor of Invercargill, wants a slice of the America's Cup action for Southland.

Standing outside Dennis Conner's Stars and Stripes store in the American Express NZ Cup Village, the one-time concrete-mixing, radical local body politician outlines his "cunning plan" to attract tourists south.

The "cunning plan" is across the road. Where most see a gravel carpark, Mr Shadbolt sees a temporary "Southland pavilion" promoting the Deep South's finest goods. Unfortunately, some Invercargill City councillors see a black hole for ratepayers' money.

So Mr Shadbolt has set off on a nine-day tour, inviting a dozen ratepayers along, at $1700 a head ("it's all user-pays"), plus a reporter from the local regional television station, to try to convince the doubters it would be $60,000 well spent.

Says Mr Shadbolt: "Invercargill is the fastest-declining city in Australasia. We are losing 5 per cent of our population every census. We need to tap the tourist stream coming to Auckland for the cup.

"We say to super-yacht owners, 'If you're hanging around for the Sydney Olympics after the cup, head south and take in Milford Sound.'

"We say to tourists, 'Auckland is the gateway to New Zealand, so go through the gate and visit us'."

In front of the mayor of the fastest-declining city in the country (population 53,000 and falling), workmen surrounded by cranes are building new apartments in the fastest-growing city in the country (population over a million and rising). Behind him, a logo on a Dennis Conner shirt says, "Not everyone is in the same boat."

A two-term Mayor of Waitemata in the 1980s, a former Auckland Regional Authority member and now Mayor of Invercargill for a second time after a three-year hiatus, Mr Shadbolt gets back to Auckland twice a year to see his three sons and one grandson.

A little paunchier, a little more mellow but with the same old toothy grin, he still has an opinion on just about anything.

On Waitakere Mayor and Labour president Bob Harvey: "I never pulled down my trousers, and I never claimed the CIA killed Norm Kirk. I must be getting conservative in my old age."

On the American Express NZ Cup Village: "It should be the Bruce Jesson Village. [The late Alliance politician] sorted out the debts of the old ARA and left money to invest. He's the waterfront hero. Mind you, they probably wouldn't name the village after an old republican socialist, would they?"

More on the village: "On bad days, there used to be raw turds floating around down here ... Now look at it. Bloody fantastic."

On Southland weather: "Global warming is a terrible thing but we have benefited from much better weather down south."

Southland, says Mr Shadbolt, is losing people to the north as they follow jobs or a different life.

The province is trying to arrest the decline with promotions, Internet sites and, possibly, the Southland Pavilion, if Invercargill City councillors agree at a meeting on December 11.

"Our biggest export has been people," says Mr Shadbolt. "Like the Irish and the Israelites, we want Southlanders to remember where their hearts are and come home.

"If they can't, they can invest, return for conferences or holidays."

One Southlander on "Tim's Tour," Tania Kay, was making her first trip to Auckland. Wearing boat shoes, an anchor brooch, a marine sweat-shirt and gold nautical rope ear-rings ("I searched all day for anchor ear-rings") for the trip around the cup village, she says the biggest surprise is how friendly Aucklanders are.

And the worst thing about the city? "I could walk from my house to downtown quicker than it takes to get absolutely nowhere on a Link bus here."