Southern Scenic Route

12/06/2026

🛑 The Absolute Joke of Wellington’s Priorities 🛑 Why is the central government dropping an insane $200k per daily car on a North Island road while treating our life-saving Dunedin Hospital like an "unaffordable crisis"? 🤬 We contribute way too much to the country to be ignored like this!

Here is how Wellington is shortchanging the South:

delusional Cost Expectations 💸
The government is stubbornly sticking to a strict $1.8 billion budget cap set a decade ago. Meanwhile, a similar hospital in Adelaide, Australia, is being built with a realistic budget of $3.9b NZD. Wellington is living in a fantasy land about what modern healthcare actually costs to build! 🏥🎒

💔 Southern Lives Are Being Grossly Undervalued 💔
Dunedin Hospital serves over 330,000 people across Otago and Southland. That measly $1.8b cap means the government is investing just $5,000 per person for a vital, life-saving asset. Are our lives worth that little to them? 🤷‍♂️

🚗 Absurd Spending Priorities 🚗
While the government cries poor over our hospital, they are perfectly happy to spend roughly $200,000 per daily vehicle on a northern highway just to save drivers a grand total of seven minutes. Let that sink in. ⏱️🤦‍♂️

🕵️‍♂️ Hiding the Truth From the Public 🕵️‍♂️
The Ministry of Transport and NZTA are actively blocking official requests to release the road's true costs. Why? Because the last public data showed it returns a dismal 70 cents of value for every dollar spent! They are willfully hiding a terrible financial failure just to push through a North Island "pet project." 🤫📉

"Four-lane expressways do not treat cancer, they do not reduce emergency department waiting times, and they do not save lives." 🚫🛣️

Why Roads Rather Than Hospitals?
By Dave Bainbridge-Zafar - For Dunedin

Why is Wellington treating the South as an afterthought?

When you look at the raw numbers, the maths behind our national infrastructure spending is staggering:

❌ New Dunedin Hospital: Capped at a strict $1.8 billion budget, serving a massive regional catchment of over 330,000 people across Otago and Southland. That breaks down to about $5,000 of investment per person for a vital, life-saving facility.

✅ Warkworth to Te Hana Highway: A 26km stretch north of Auckland projected to cost $4 billion. Based on traffic modeling, that equals an astronomical $200,000 per daily vehicle to save roughly seven minutes of travel time.
Four-lane expressways don't treat cancer, they don't reduce emergency department waiting times, and they don't save lives. We need a transparent, evidence-based approach to how our taxpayer dollars are spent.

Read Dave's full opinion piece in the Otago Daily Times

11/06/2026

🤹‍♂️ Southland Mayor Rob Scott says two separate local government reform processes are now running at the same time, creating confusion, overlap, and uncertainty. 📏 His message is simple: when making major changes to how a region is governed, it pays to "measure twice, cut once."

🏠 In an opinion piece, Scott compares Southland's local government structure to an old house that has been altered over many years and is no longer fit for purpose.

🏛️ He argues the Local Government Commission's review has been carefully developed over several years and aims to simplify the current structure, reducing four councils to two with clearer responsibilities and less duplication.

🗳️ Scott also highlights that, after the commission completes its work, local residents will have the final say through a public vote.

⚡ However, he is critical of the Government's parallel "Head Start" process, saying it is moving faster, follows a different approach, and risks complicating an already complex discussion.

If local government reform in Southland feels confusing right now, it might help to think of it like a house. Not just any house, but one that has...

09/06/2026

The 3.5km trail will connect to an existing recreational trail and an active travel link at the southern end of Hanley’s Farm and travel, off road, through the growing Woolbrae and Park Ridge subdivisions. It was hoped the trail would be operational some time during the summer of 2026-27

Construction of a new $850,000 trail, ultimately linking Jacks Point to Frankton, is expected to start towards the end of winter. The 3.5km trail...

09/06/2026

Invercargill has some of the widest streets in the country, but do you know why?

Back in the 1850s, John Turnbull Thomson was tasked with surveying the new settlement of Invercargill. Unlike the cramped streets he knew from Bamburgh in Northern England, Thomson planned Invercargill differently.

He designed the four main streets - Clyde, Dee, Tay and Tweed, all of which he named after Scottish rivers - to be two chains wide (about 40 metres across). At the time, that width made it far easier for horse-drawn carts and carriages to turn around, move goods and navigate the growing settlement without the tight squeeze common in older towns.

More than 170 years later, those extra-wide streets are still one of Invercargill’s most recognisable features. They’ve carried everything from horse carts and electric trams to classic cars cruising Dee Street and the iconic centre parks that quickly became part of our city’s character during the 20th century.

📸: Dee Street looking north, 1912. Collection of Te Kupeka Tiaki Taoka Southern Regional Collections Trust, P81.24.

09/06/2026

08/06/2026

08/06/2026

The Wasted Opportunity ‼️ What we do now: NZ produces huge amounts of natural fibres (wool, h**p, native flax). But we sell it overseas raw and cheap (like wool for just $2/kg) 📉.
The mistake: We then buy back expensive imported clothes and carpets made from our own stuff (at up to $37/kg!) 💸.

The goal: Stop selling raw materials for pennies. Instead, let's make high-value, eco-friendly products right here in NZ! 🇳🇿🧥

🥛 The Problem: Intensive Dairy Farming is Hurting NZ
Right now, our economy relies heavily on packing massive numbers of dairy cows onto fields. This causes major eco-damage:

🤢 Dirty Water: Millions of heavy cows mean too much cow p*e and chemical fertilizers. This leaks into our underground water and rivers (called nitrate leaching), creating toxic green algae and ruining our drinking water.

💨 Climate Change: NZ's agriculture creates half of the country's greenhouse gases. Why? Because millions of cows are constantly burping up methane gas.

🚜 Ruined Dirt: Heavy cows stomp and pack the dirt down so hard (soil compaction) that grass can't breathe, and rain just washes the topsoil away into rivers.

🌱 The Solution: Why the Fibre Industry is Way Cleaner!
Switching our focus toward plants and lighter animals is a massive win for nature:

🐑 Wool (Sheep vs. Cows): Sheep are way lighter and their p*e is spread out naturally, so it doesn't ruin the water. Plus, wool is 100% natural - when you throw it away, it safely melts back into the earth instead of turning into plastic pollution! 🌊❌

🌾 Harakeke (Native NZ Flax): This plant loves growing next to rivers. It acts like a giant natural water filter, soaking up pollution and stopping the riverbanks from washing away. No chemical sprays needed! 🛡️💧

🌿 Industrial H**p: H**p is a superhero plant. It sucks carbon dioxide out of the air like a vacuum 🌬️ and its deep roots naturally break up hard dirt, making the soil healthy again without chemicals.

💡 The Big Takeaway
Instead of pushing our environment to the breaking point with intensive dairy farming, NZ can make more money and heal the planet by growing natural fibres. Less cow pollution, more green products! 🌍💚

The first of its kind research found the fibre industry is worth more than than $926 million at the farm gate.

07/06/2026

🎭🎉 Happy 120th Birthday to Invercargill’s Civic Theatre! 🎉🎭 Imagine Invercargill in 1906 - horses and carriages on the streets, gas lamps lighting the footpaths, and Southlanders celebrating the opening of a magnificent new Town Hall and Theatre.

🏛️ Today, 120 years later, the Civic Theatre remains one of Southland’s most treasured landmarks.

✨ It has survived earthquakes, floods, storms, demolition threats, and changing times.
🎬 It has hosted everything from grand operas and ballets to boxing matches and cinema screenings.
🏍️ It even hosted the world premiere of The World's Fastest Indian in 2005.
🖤 Earlier this year, it was also the venue for the funeral of Sir Tim Shadbolt.

💙 Thankfully, generations of Southlanders had the foresight to save and restore this beautiful Edwardian building rather than lose it forever.

Having survived floods, earthquakes, and multiple calls for its demolition, Invercargill’s ultimate survivor is ready for its next act.

05/06/2026

🛑 How Short-Termism is Crippling New Zealand 🛑 Dunedin Hospital, Interislander, etc... The "stop-start" nature of short-term political cycles isn't just inefficient - it is actively breaking the country's foundational infrastructure. Here is exactly how short-term thinking is crippling national progress:

💸 $11.8B Spent, Zero Assets Built: Billions of taxpayer dollars are flushed down the drain on business cases, consultations, and contract cancellation fees when projects are axed. We foot a massive bill, but get absolutely nothing built in return.

🧠 The Sector Brain Drain: Infrastructure relies on highly skilled people. When a major project is abruptly paused, 65% of the workforce leaves the sector or moves overseas within two years. Restarting later costs millions just to re-recruit and retrain.

📈 The Illusion of "Savings": Hitting pause to save money today is an economic mirage. Compounding inflation, legal penalties, and asset decay mean that when the project is inevitably revived, the final price tag absolutely skyrockets.

🕳️ Widening a $210 Billion Deficit: New Zealand already faces a massive infrastructure shortfall. Wasting $11.8 billion on political flip-flopping directly robs the country of the funds needed to fix leaking pipes, upgrade roads, and modernize public transit.

⏳ 3-Year Politics vs. 30-Year Needs: Major infrastructure requires decades of stable planning. Treating essential public utilities as short-term political footballs destroys industry confidence and guarantees taxpayers pay a premium for chronic delays.

New research finds delays and uncertainty cost taxpayers an estimated $11.8 billion.

04/06/2026