Aaron:
We’ll talk about politics in a moment. But first of all, I don’t know you, and I imagine a lot of listeners don’t either. So let’s start with the basics – who are you? What’s your family situation, what’s your work situation? All that kind of stuff people like to know.
Nick Pearce:
Who am I? Well, I’ve lived in Raglan for just over five years now. I moved here around Covid –
Aaron:
Slightly before slightly after?
Nick Pearce:
Just as it hit really. I was facing the prospect of being locked down in a small place, and my partner was out here, so I decided to move in with her.
Aaron:
Smart move. That first lockdown was kind of nice, wasn’t it? Like a permanent Sunday afternoon. I know some people had a bad time, but for others it wasn’t so bad.
Nick Pearce:
No, I remember the weather was perfect. We were on Greenslade Road overlooking the harbour. It was nice watching people paddleboard past.
Aaron:
Anyway, that’s how you got here.
Nick Pearce:
Yeah – and I really like Raglan. It’s a place that’s grown on me since moving here.
I work for the Department of Conservation, in the commercial and experience management team. I’m a bit of an analyst.
Aaron:
Commercial? I wasn’t expecting the word commercial to pop up in a job description for the Department of Conservation.
Nick Pearce:
We’ve got a new minister and a new government, and the minister is interested in revenue – which is not unexpected, given the way the coalition came in.
The commercial team at DOC does pricing reviews, that sort of thing. For example, the most recent piece of work I did was the campsite pricing review for DOC. We’ve got over 300 campsites, and we look at how we’re pricing them, what the demand is, what visitors want, and make sure we’re trying to earn enough to maintain the campsites.
DOC historically doesn’t get funded well. The minister is trying to help us find a way through that.
Aaron:
I guess as someone who works for a department, you have to be careful about how you talk about these things. Do you have a comms team that gets on your case if you…?
Nick Pearce:
Yes, the comms team are all over me sometimes. [laughs] When we make a price change, obviously there’s a lot of interested people in how we’ve done that. So we manage the communications carefully.
Aaron:
I presume the prices will be going up, by the sounds of what you’re saying.
Nick Pearce:
Not all of them. There are over 300 campsites. Some of them are monstrous and attract a lot of tourists, while others are small or out in the back country. So there’s a lot of variation to the way you do that.
Aaron:
I’ve been to some sites that are in very obscure places – but they’re always the best places to go. The harder they are to get to, the better it is when you get there.
Nick Pearce:
Generally, I think that’s the DOC ethos too. We have a lot of back-country huts and campsites which are well used.
Aaron:
So has your career always been in that kind of work?
Nick Pearce:
No. As I’ve said I’m an analyst so I’ve worked for a number of different organisations, including Genesis Energy. Way back I worked for Corrections, I was a probation officer for a long time, working around here in the Waikato. I’ve worked for non-profits as well so moved around a bit, but a colourful, interesting and wide experience, I think.
Aaron:
I’m always interested in the parts of your background that are relevant to being on the community board and dealing with council. And I guess as an analyst you’re used to processing a fair bit of information.
Nick Pearce:
Yes. One really relevant job that I did was for Waikato District Council about ten years ago. I was the business improvement manager there.
Aaron:
Oh really – so you’ve been on the inside.
Nick Pearce:
Yes, I know really well how the council works.
Aaron:
Well, there’s a new CEO now, but I’m always interested to talk to people who’ve been inside council. Out in the community, people like to criticise council, but often the criticism is incoherent. Sometimes it’s on the mark, sometimes it’s way off the mark.
I try really hard to understand, but I’ve never worked inside a council, so I don’t really know what it’s like to work there. A difference I would notice would be a lack of autonomy. In my job here, I’ve got full autonomy, but in council I suspect you’d have a lot less.
Nick Pearce:
Do you want a quick potted history of how I see Waikato District Council?
Aaron:
Yeah, go ahead.
Nick Pearce:
Firstly, one of the things people need to understand about councils – and Waikato District in particular – are complex organisations. They’re smaller, but the number of departments and key goals they work towards is massive. You’ve got everything from dog control to water management, to consents to building control. There’s a wide range of focus areas for a council, so they’re not easy to run. People need to understand that.
This council still has a very good credit rating, AA+. This council, among many others, has focused heavily on the financial side of things. That’s good in some ways – having a strong credit rating shows integrity and discipline in the way they run those things.
But for me, one of the reasons I’m standing for the community board is that the interface between council and community is not always perfect, in my view.
Aaron:
Do you think that’s reflected in the voting turnout? The whole country has a poor turnout for local body elections, but Waikato District is one of the worst – usually the lowest or second lowest.
Nick Pearce:
I lived in Ngāruawāhia for 15 years, so I know the area really well. One of the councillors there, Councillor Paterson, is a good friend of mine – we played football together in Ngaruawahia.
My feeling is that a number of the smaller communities are inwardly focused. That’s the nature of a small community. But when you have many communities like that, people often don’t connect to the wider picture.
Aaron:
In Raglan we like where we are, we like being Raglan. We’re disinterested in what happens over the other side of the Divvy.
Tamahere has its own thing – they think they’re part of Hamilton.
Nick Pearce:
When I played football [rugby], we’d come across here to play Raglan, and it was always a battle royal between Ngāruawāhia and Raglan.
Aaron:
Yes, that sort of thing happens, but mostly, as you say, it comes down to communities being focused internally on themselves.
Nick Pearce:
I read the current two-year community board plan, and one word stuck out to me when I was reading it – localism.
When they were talking about economic goals, I wondered what localism means to the community here. To me it’s a double-edged word. It can mean we’re focused on ourselves and looking after ourselves, but it can also mean shutting out the outside world a bit.
I think the plan is well written, and it has good goals. But there’s a balance to be struck between how you see yourselves, how you feel about who you are, and how the world comes in here. Obviously, every weekend you see hundreds, 1000s of people during the summer coming out here. I think we serve that group quite well. The central business area here in Raglan is a really good one and does well.
But with Rangitahi and the growth that’s going on here; my view is that Raglan is on the cusp of change. Growth can go two different directions, and we need a balanced view of how we look at that.
Aaron:
Rangitahi is well on its way, but there’s going to be five or 600 houses there and 400 potentially across the road, up the road.
Nick Pearce:
I guess I’m like a lot of residents. You drive up there and have a look around sometimes like what’s going on?.
Aaron:
If you leave it for a few months, it’s always shocking how many more houses there are.
Nick Pearce:
If you look around, there’s so much more space for more houses. So there’s quite a bit of growth to go there yet.
Aaron:
Yes, there’s that. But Rangitahi also has a huge amount of green space as part of the subdivision. All the sections are small, but they’ve got their own special district plan section – kind of against the wishes of the community as I recall.
I’ll credit them with making a nice subdivision. But when you see all that space, most of it is actually green space for the small sections to back onto.
Nick Pearce:
My oldest son bought a property out there. He’s an architect in Auckland. They developed a house, and I saw how that worked for him. There were some hold-ups with titles and things like that, which made it difficult.
Aaron:
That often happens with new sections – getting the title through can be a slow process.
Nick Pearce:
Yes, but in this case there was a delay of a couple of years.
Aaron:
Oh, that bad?
Nick Pearce:
Yes, and it cost them. That’s a small example of something that maybe could have been done better.
Aaron:
So, back to the issue like the insight you have from the council. The first thing you say in your candidate statement is about rates – I’m presuming you were quoting the Taxpayers’ Union.
You didn’t mention that our rate increase this year is one of the lowest in the country. I’m curious – how you tie that in with your experience inside council.
Because a lot of people are now quoting the Taxpayers’ Union – they’ve had a big campaign to make this an issue. And I feel like many people are almost unthinkingly parroting that. But since you’ve got experience inside council, I’m hoping you can give us a bit more.
Nick Pearce:
Yeah I don’t think I am [parroting the Taxpayers Union]. I’ll give you some personal experience: I lived in Ngāruawāhia for 12 years, then moved to Harrowfield in Hamilton – so that’s a completely different set up. Our rates were pretty much the same, but in Ngāruawāhia we didn’t even have proper footpaths. That, to me, is just on the ground reality. And I don’t see how that works. I really can’t quite follow the logic of that
Aaron:
I’m trying to think what council would tell you if you asked. They’d probably say we have more roads in our district per person than other areas. We’re also a high-growth area.
Somebody told me this week that back under the John Key government, the government changed the way development contributions worked – councils now make up a larger share, and developers pay less. That shifted the burden onto ratepayers.
If you look at the list of councils with lower rates, they tend to be places like Buller District Council, where not many people want to live. We’re not broadcasting in Buller, so I think I can safely say that. [laughs]
I feel like being in a high-growth area, which we are, where it’s ridiculous. I think that’s an issue.
I think the Taxpayers Union also compared things to inflation, which is fair enough, but inflation within the infrastructure – within the construction industry, has been a lot higher, and if Council’s building a lot of infrastructure…
Nick Pearce:
I’m not going to pretend that it’s simple. Your explanation is fair, and there are also issues.
Aaron:
I’m not trying to defend them because I know there are issues, but I think we need to have a proper conversation – not just exchange slogans. That’s what’s happening in media-land at the moment.
Nick Pearce:
Exactly. Just a word on my profile – I wrote that in a bit of a hurry when I put in my nomination.
Aaron:
You’re not the only one.
Nick Pearce:
Since then I’ve done a couple more profiles – one for the local paper and another for a group that contacted me after I became a candidate. In those I was able to deconstruct things a lot more.
Aaron:
Do you want to deconstruct that for us now?
Nick Pearce:
On the rates issue – I got on quite well with the rating team at Waikato District Council, so I had a pretty good understanding of how the system worked. I wasn’t always convinced about some of the decisions that were made around roads in certain areas.
Now I’m being careful about what I say, because there’s people I knew that work at the council and still do, but there were reservations within Council, among some of the roading people
So, for instance, if we’re deconstructing this, let’s look a little closer at how that works. I was also there when Pōkeno began to get developed too, went up and had a good look.
Aaron:
So Pōkeno’s increased in population ten-fold or something?
Nick Pearce:
I don’t live in Pōkeno – I just drive through it like most of us – but to me that was pretty well done. I’m not smacking things down; it was quite an undertaking, and I think it was managed reasonably efficiently by the council.
But bringing it back to Raglan, another experience for me that pushed me to stand for the board is my family’s history on Waiheke. We don’t own it anymore, but we had property there from the 1970s. When I was a kid, my parents bought a piece of land at Palm Beach on Waiheke, and we used to go there all the time.
Waiheke – old school in the 70s and 80s – was a lot like Raglan was. Very, very similar
Aaron:
This is a cautionary tale you’re about to give us isn’t it?
Nick Pearce:
Well, maybe not so much a cautionary tale. I remember in the 90s hopping on the car ferry to Waiheke and looking at the vehicles getting on. There were Range Rovers, there were trailers full of cases of wine – it was a whole different group of people.
Aaron:
That’s just started happening here in the last few years.
Nick Pearce:
Yeah, no wineries here yet…
Aaron:
No but the type of vehicles you’re talking about…
Nick Pearce:
Oh yeah, you see all sorts of different kinds of people here now, but I don’t have a problem with that. Part of that comes from my experience with what I saw happen on Waiheke.
The thing that impressed me most – and still does when I go there – is that despite all the development and all the money, and there’s some pretty rich people out there who have built some pretty big houses and all the rest of it , the beaches still feel exactly the same as they always did. The back-country roads, with the old-school baches all across Waiheke are the same.
From what I understand, and from talking to people over there, the council there has done a really good job of keeping control of that influx if you can put it that way. I mentioned the word balance earlier. There’s a balance between your economic vision and all the rest of it that goes into a place, but maintaining – that localism, the feeling of that place.
I still enjoy Waiheke every bit as much as I used to. It is a different place now. Back in the 70s and 80s it was hippie central in a major way. You’d jump on the ferry from Auckland and there’d be some pretty strange people heading over to Waiheke. [laughs]
Aaron:
That sounds similar to Raglan as well.
Nick Pearce:
I think so. But as I said at the start, my view of Raglan is really positive. Since I’ve lived here, I’ve found the people who live here, run businesses here, and do what they do are really good people.
I really like Dennis Amoore, the chairperson. And I’ve listened to Lisa Thomson on one of your interviews too. I think they’re smart, sensible, committed people.
So I’m coming into this aware of that, and just hoping I can contribute a bit more – analysis, technical knowledge of how council works, and some engagement skills as well, which I’ve had to use in different ways during my working life.
Aaron:
You’re talking about – I mean, council is always talking about engaging with the public. Is that the type of engagement you mean?
Nick Pearce:
Well, my feeling/suspicion for Raglan is that you can have council on one side and the board on the other, and you read all the different statements about expressing views and sharing ideas. But the hardcore interface between them needs to be managed really well at times.
I remember, from when I was working at council – I’m watching my words again here – but there was a reluctance on the part of some managers in the council to even come out here. I saw it with my own eyes 10 years ago. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but I’d be interested to have a look.
Aaron:
I think the level of engagement has improved. But I think council staff can be shy about coming out to the public – and sometimes that’s fair enough, because the public can be pretty horrible to them.
Nick Pearce:
I heard stories about that.
Aaron:
It’s unfortunate, because I’d like it if all council staff had to live here. Then their knowledge of our community would be so intimate and detailed that they’d make excellent decisions without having to do masses of research.
Nick Pearce:
Feels like utopia mate, [laughs]
Aaron:
Well you’ve got to be careful with a word like that. But if council staff were part of the community, I think it would just work better.
Nick Pearce:
And I guess what I’m saying is that maybe more thought, maybe there’s some more effort in thought that can go into the way engagement works, and perhaps challenging. Back a little bit on some cases.
I’m sure the board here has done that at times. Listening to Dennis, it sounded like they have. For instance, the new water treatment plant that just opened – that was about seven years in negotiation and development.
Aaron:
That issue has been going on since they first put the treatment ponds in decades ago, and the community has never been very happy.
But the last five, six, seven years, council has actually been listening to the community – and now the community is getting the solution it asked for. Which is interesting, because it doesn’t always happen, as we know.
Nick Pearce:
It’s funny – just a small thought from when I worked for council. If you think way back to how New Zealand developed, small towns have grown and places develop as they do. Local bodies were set up to manage certain things..
But the first and primary goal of any local body, when it was first established, is water. They have to ensure a good drinking water supply, maintain it, and put the systems in place.
So to me, the most important thing a council can do is make sure the water supply, the treatment and everything around it is properly managed. I would have thought that was always the priority.
Aaron:
Yes, and it’s hard to fault council too much for what’s happened over the last few years. I’ve criticised them about other things, but the new treatment plant that’s just opened produces such a high quality of water.
Nick Pearce:
Yes, I’ve read all the technical details and it sounds pretty good.
Aaron:
I didn’t know this was even a possibility, but there are now three of these plants in the district. And I’d actually say – I don’t want to sound like the council comms department – but I think our council is further ahead than most in terms of all the upgrades to the Three Waters that government now requires councils to handle.
So I’m hopeful that because we’ve already done some of that work, our rates won’t rise as high as in other areas. I don’t know.
So that’s a bit of a good news area. I think for Raglan the harder thing is, I’ve seen multiple chairs of the community board trying to put pressure on to get a town plan – like a proper structure plan – happening. But we’re still behind towns like Ngāruawāhia in the queue to get that.
The far north of the district has really high growth, sure, we still have very high growth but we’re still behind other towns that have quite slow growth.
Nick Pearce:
Yeah, I don’t know if the queue is a good thing…
Aaron:
They say a structure plan is an expensive thing to do, so they’re just doing one community at a time.
But anyway, we’ve now got these two residential developments, and developers are going to do what developers do. But there was no town plan for those projects to fit into – nothing for them to even look at before they went ahead.
So the town isn’t really being planned. It’s just happening.
Nick Pearce:
When I was thinking about this chat and what I might stand for. There are a couple of things. One is obvious, and a lot of people talk about it – back to basics for councils. Focus on water, roads, infrastructure. That’s the bread and butter of what a council does.
The other one, for me, is to do with the board here and the community here. The phrase is that the board expresses the views of the community to the council, so the council can take that on board. I think we maybe need to do a bit more than that, which is actually project a vision, and a more coherent and elaborate way that takes a lot of engagement with the community.
I’m not saying the board don’t do that – it seems like they do – but there’s a different kind of quality to the way you need to develop a vision. That’s something worth thinking about.
Aaron:
So, it’s a big picture?
Nick Pearce:
Yes, things are happening a little bit ad hoc. And look, I work at DOC, and DOC has a history of being a bit ad hoc, to be fair. I hope I’m not getting in trouble for saying that. [laughs]
But we had a new CEO come in two or three years ago, and her whole vision has been to make the organisation more systematic, professional, and regularised in the way we do things. And that seems to be having an effect. I’ve seen how that can be put into place.
Aaron:
Can we go back to the “back to basics” thing? Because that’s a slogan I keep hearing. But what does it actually mean? What are the basics?
Some people might say libraries are, or aren’t. People talk about “nice to haves”. I’ve asked other candidates what we can cut from the budget, and I haven’t really had any substantial answers.
Nick Pearce:
Must be a good question then? [laughs]
Aaron:
So far I’ve talked to people who haven’t been on the inside yet – they haven’t been a community board member or a councillor. To be fair to them, they don’t really know what goes on.
Nick Pearce:
Same for me, in a way – although I have the background we’ve discussed. Being an analyst, I want to see and understand, and take a bit of time to think things through. I’m planning to go to the next board meeting, which is in a couple of weeks’ time, just…
Aaron:
It’s probably Te Mata, yeah – the hall’s just reopened out there. Don’t quote me on that. That’s just a vibes answer. [laughs]
Editor’s note: The meeting will be held at the Raglan Town Hall.
Nick Pearce:
I’ll check, I could be wrong.
Anyway, I’m planning to go along, just to get a feel for how the board works and get a sense of it. I’ve read some of the minutes from meetings and things…
Aaron:
Do you get much out of the minutes?
Nick Pearce:
Well, the minutes from most meetings aren’t that great, but they seem well organised.
I just want to get the vibe firsthand of how the board works. I’ve seen the names and faces of the people there and I recognise some of them – that all seems pretty good. But if I’m thinking about and intending to become part of that, I’d like to know where I might fit in.
Aaron:
How are you for spare time to do this job?
Nick Pearce:
Well, I’ve got some – which is one of the reasons that helped me decide. I’m at a kind of time in my life where everything’s pretty well organised. Job’s good. I’ve got spare time, evenings, weekends, and the energy to put into it. So I feel comfortable with that side of things.
Don’t actually know firsthand what the workload’s like, but reading stuff…
Aaron:
It appears to be – my observation is, it’s as much or as little as you want. Because, I’m critical of some board members for not doing enough, but I know there are others who are doing a lot. So that’s why I say it’s up to you [but] it shouldn’t be.
Nick Pearce:
You’re like the watchdog, then
Aaron:
Nah, I’m not, there’s another guy who gets that title in town – another one of our DJs. But, I mean, most of the board will tell you that’s the case too, that there’s varying levels of commitment. And you might get $6,000 a year for it.
Nick Pearce:
Look, what can I say? I work hard. I’m used to digesting a lot of information and making sense of it – sometimes quickly – so I don’t have a problem with that. I understand how decision-making at higher levels works, what’s important to know and what’s less important. So I think I can sift and filter information as it comes in.
Aaron:
Yeah, and I do see that as an issue. I must admit, the staff produce truckloads of data, information, reports – and everyone looks for the executive summary, because there’s so much to read. Well, I’m not sure everyone does, but that’s your first instinct when you’re given a big, weighty tome.
Nick Pearce:
Of course, yeah. Yeah, well, I guess this is just the part of me not being a board member yet – the learning curve, seeing how that looks. But as I’ve said, I’ve worked in many different environments, in different situations, for different organisations that do different things. And I think I can pick my way through the weeds quite quickly.
Aaron:
Okay, one other question I need to ask – and I usually ask people. In Raglan, we like to think we’re unique, we’re different, we’ve got our own culture. And people have been concerned for a long time about not wanting that to change.
So, can you sum up what that culture is? There’s no right answer to this – you won’t be marked on it – but I’m curious.
Nick Pearce:
I can tell you what it feels like to me. Having been here five years – which I think is a decent amount of time to get a grip, without being an old-school local – For me, just off the top of my head, the environment is beautiful, it’s special.
I like all the different spaces you can be part of here, the art culture. There are some great creative people in Raglan. We’ve got loads of Raglan art at home – we’re always looking around here. It’s fantastic.
The general vibe, so I go to the quiz on Tuesdays with a group of us that do that – that’s cool just getting out, having a drink or some food. Those kinds of relaxing things are nice.
We do a lot of walking, so there’s Karioi, the top of the Divvy, and plenty of other places. We also head over to Te Aroha, the Hunua Ranges, all over the place but Raglan has its own space for that.
And if we’re talking about culture, I think Raglan has a personality – a collective one.
Aaron:
That’s an interesting way of describing it – a personality.
Nick Pearce:
Yes, well, it has. When I was referring to Waiheke, it definitely had a personality. It’s changed, but the core of it remains for me on Waiheke – which is what I was describing.
People change, culture changes. And as I mentioned, I feel that change is going to be a factor for Raglan in the next few years. How we grow and make the most of it is important.
Aaron:
There’s been a tendency to want to stop all change, in an effort to preserve the culture. But we know change is going to happen anyway. So how do you…
Nick Pearce:
Well, if one of your goals is to invite as many people as you can out here to have fun, you’re going to have to open yourself to a bit of change.
Aaron:
That’s a really good point.
Nick Pearce:
And that’s a legitimate goal – this is a great place, it’s no wonder people come here.
But the question is how you manage that, and how you project a vision for the future. For me, that vision needs to retain the environmental values, retains the artistic culture – they’re two are the hallmarks of what makes this place special and beautiful. And yes, keep the offbeat character, if I can put it that way.
I have friends in conservation who live in other parts of the country. They ask me what’s it like in Raglan’s, and I say – well, when I go to the supermarket and half the people are in bare feet [laughs]
Aaron:
That just seems normal, right? I’ve been here for 25 years
Nick Pearce:
I know [laughs]. The rest of New Zealand has a chuckle at that one.
Aaron:
We’re like: Just get with the programme right?
Nick Pearce:
I kind of like that – it’s almost a symbol of the offbeat side of the place.
Aaron:
You’re probably right – it’s about letting people know where they are. Yeah, fair enough. Hey, it’s time to wrap up, I’ve got another interview to do this morning. Are we going to see you at the Meet the Candidates event on the 14th?
Nick Pearce:
Sure, looking forward to it.
Aaron:
We’ve ended up running it this year – because we’re not busy enough. [laughs]
All right, folks, you’ve been listening to Nick Pearce, candidate for the Raglan Community Board. Thanks for coming in.
Nick Pearce:
Thanks, it’s been great.
Aaron:
Do you have somewhere people can find out more about you?
Nick Pearce:
Yes – I quickly set up a Gmail account if people want to just talk. It’s really simple: nickpraglan@gmail.com – all lowercase. That’s just a starter, but I’ll probably get on Facebook or something at some point.
Aaron:
Great. All right, thanks for coming in.