Rotary

Thuesday 8 August 2006

Good Afternoon… thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. The Rotary motto 'Service above Self' reflects my own values of servant leadership, that is leadership through collaboration, foresight, listening and the ethical use of power and empowerment. They were also the ideals of the city's founding fathers and the inclusive spirit of this city.

Christchurch pioneered what became known as the welfare state. We were first here also. First with public housing, first with public works schemes, first in fact with a Mayor's welfare fund. It was here that we forged what has become an active contract of care between the city and its people. It is a contract of care best summed up in the saying "I am my brother's keeper."

While it's been great to celebrate our past over the last few weeks, we also need to realise that for Christchurch the pioneering days are not over. We are now a large city, but still a very new city. To serve our future well there is still a lot to do.

Like our founders 150 years ago we also face some major challenges. Our biggest project on the table at the moment is the Ocean Outfall for a waste water.

Re-cycling and finding new use for our rubbish stream are priorities. Kate Valley has a very limited life as a place to dump rubbish.

In 1856 Christchurch was pretty much within the Four Avenues. Today much of our new pioneering challenges lie again within this area. We need to aim toward at least 30,000 people living and working here in the central city.

Our heritage buildings, and their very new neighbours like the Art Gallery make up what is now our cultural precinct. This area faces new demands and challenges.

We need to find a way to allow more space for our museum and within the Art Gallery to draw in more people. Our cultural frontiers need to expand.

Closer to home for the Christchurch City Council our growing city also demands that we design and build a new headquarters. This will be the first since the original. It will be a major milestone for Christchurch as what is now is, New Zealand's second largest city.

We can't afford to let the design of the inner city stage stay static. We need to explore new ways, of moving about the city.

While we invest in our civic structure we also need to invest in helping our private sector re-develop the inner city. Here we need to be the broker, not the banker.

Where we differ from our founders is that they faced the challenge of breaking in new territory. Our challenge is to break in new territory against the background of ecological limits to how much more we can do to our air and water, and still expect to survive.

Our forebears had never heard of petrol. We are having to adjust to the idea that within generations this key driver to our civilisation may again be absent.

Rather than limitless scope for exploitation of the natural world we are up against the desperately urgent need to conserve and preserve. Our new frontiers have to be made up of sustainable goals and aims.

We will all have to adjust to pioneering new ways of thinking about how we act and why. The village life our founders came from and built from may turn out to be our ultimate destination. We are again pioneers. The 60 or so villages that grew to become Christchurch may again become local hubs for community life.

Our legacy as we move forward is that we do so as custodians of a hugely humane tradition as a city. It is a legacy to take with us into the next 150 years. We can do so knowing that experience shows us we meet these major challenges well.

There are major achievements. Since 2000 our roading has increased by 51 kilometres.

Our parks and open spaces are increasing by 80 hectares a year for regional parks and 8 hectares a year for urban parks.

Our residents continued to show their interest in our city with over 2000 submissions on the Long Term Council Community Plan. The LTCCP was a big win for democracy in the city.

The message Councillors received was that residents want expanded services. There was a clarion call to keep our libraries and we listened and agreed to do so.

As we face the uncertain future we can do so knowing we have a strong start to build on. We have done well as a city. We will continue to do so in future.