Making connections
MAYOR’S COLUMN
Broadening horizons: Mayor Garry Moore tests the latest in remote meeting equipment at the Tokyo head office of Hitachi.
Last month I travelled to Japan, visiting our sister city there, attending meetings of the Mayors for Peace organisation and continuing efforts to broaden our inter-city relationships to include things such as economic links and research exchanges.
Kurashiki’s our Japanese sister city. It’s a beautiful place, on the Inland Sea coast to the west of Osaka. It’s known for its well-preserved historic quarter and for having one of the best private modern art collections in the world. And, while it seems to be doing reasonably well, the Kurashiki council believes change is needed if its people are to remain prosperous.
Kurashiki’s new Mayor, Kenzo Furuichi, told me he’s committed to it being more outward-looking. As part of this the council is taking part in a wider Japanese push to develop a communication software platform called IPV6. It looks to have the potential to give organisations and economies a huge boost.
In effect, Kurashiki is a global test-bed for this technology in local government. Mayor Furuichi and I talked about involving the Christchurch City Council and his council is prepared to share its knowledge and experiences with us. I believe we should take up his offer and see if we can use the experience to push along an upgrade of our city’s communication backbone.
I can hear people asking if that’s something local government should be doing, whether these kinds of things shouldn’t be left to private enterprise. My answer’s pretty simple — it’s about essential services.
Think about water supply or sewerage, or roads. They’re vital to the efficient and healthy functioning of our society and over time, it’s been found that the most efficient way of providing these things is collectively.
One example. Every day in Christchurch the incredibly complex system of piping under our streets removes 150 million litres of sewage and other wastewater from our homes, our schools, our offices. Think about it. Imagine the state of our groundwater if we were all relying only on the land under our homes to get rid of it.
Nowadays, there’s a real argument that quality communication networks are as essential as roads if a society is to thrive. Christchurch and Canterbury is a trading post, a trading post that in geographic terms is an awful long way from most of the people who use the things we have to sell.
Top-notch communications helps shrink the distance in so many ways — business, medical care, scholarship, research and development; if you’re properly connected, you really can compete from anywhere. Look at it like ports, airports, roads. Without them, you’ve got nothing. You’re just standing on the beach, waving hopefully at passing ships while your wheat’s rotting in the rain.
One of the frightening things about looking around Japan is realising how far behind we’re falling in terms of this basic communication infrastructure. We’re still really talking about getting general access to basic broadband at a reasonable price and they’re already getting much larger amounts, on mobile equipment. And they’re paying less than we pay for standard mobile connection. I would say we’re close to Third World standards, but I know of several so-called Third World countries developing what by our standards are sophisticated communication infrastructures.
So the question is, if the existing firms can’t or won’t provide the “pipes” to enable us to make these essential modern connections, should we do it collectively, like roading?
It’s a debate we need to have and I’d like to hear what you think. 
Mayor of Christchurch
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