Duncan Garner: Forget Australia – move to Invercargill!

I was in Invercargill for two days this week and it was a slightly strange experience. The province is one of two top-performing regions in New Zealand for economic activity – Otago being the other – so there was a sense of optimism I haven’t encountered further north.

It almost felt like I was in another country, where dairy and seafood exports are on the up, and where there’s more certainty, thanks to a long-term power supply deal that will keep the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter open until 2044.

The Airbus A320 plane we took south had just two empty seats; people were returning from their Pacific Island holidays or from seeing family and friends in New Zealand’s north. Out of town workers from the Waikato were arriving to fix heavy machinery at the smelter and nearby coal mine.

One woman told me she was visiting Invercargill for the first time, a mini holiday, three days looking around before heading back to Auckland. Maybe this is the answer to the Aussie exodus. Forget Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, try Invercargill instead.

Sure, the temperature was just 3°C, but the sun was out, there were heaps of car parks, no queues, no traffic jams, people everywhere said hello, and they have their first shopping mall and two new hotels. One of the hotels has five bars, including a very hip rooftop spot with a view of, um, Invercargill Central. Later in the day, it hit 5°C. Someone might want to tell Rolling Stone Mick Jagger (or Keith Richards; reports vary) that no longer is our southernmost provincial centre “the arsehole of the world”.

The Southland businesspeople I met were upbeat about the region’s prospects. It was almost like I was in another country. Even stranger, they left their Auckland jokes and parochialism at the door, and were genuinely interested and concerned about what’s happening further north where, according to Kiwibank’s most recent regional insights report, released in July, economic activity remains in the doldrums.

Being in the deep south momentarily made me forget how tough things are in our bigger cities. Now we need to convince farmers to visit and spend their money in central Auckland or on Wellington’s Lambton Quay.

Either that or the Reserve Bank has a cathartic moment and cuts the official cash rate by 50 basis points next time round. They might have cut the OCR by 25 basis points – it’s now at a three-year low of 3% - and its Monetary Policy Committee might be hinting at further cuts to come, but I say fat chance to any more marked response.

Yet former prime minister John Key says New Zealand desperately needs lower interest rates. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis must pray each morning for a drop.