ECT model ‘really good’ for Tairawhiti

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Tairawhiti electricity consumers have again been told they will not get an annual cash dividend, and instead can look forward to Eastland Community Trust distributing up to $120 million under a new wellbeing framework over the next five to six years.

Speaking at the ECT annual meeting last night, chairman Paul Reynolds said it had been a year of “wide-ranging achievements” following the amalgamation of the trust with Activate Tairawhiti.

The amalgamation meant as well as owning Eastland Group, ECT also operated the regional tourism organisation and regional economic development agency. More recently Activate had also taken over Gisborne City Centre Vibrancy, formerly known as Heart of Gisborne.

Dr Reynolds re-stated the trust’s position on what distribution model was best for the region.

Last year the trust distributed $10.6m throughout the community, something that would not have been possible under rebate models used by electricity consumer trusts.

“Under that model, how do community groups get access to funds? We think this model is a really good one for Tairawhiti.”

The trust would continue to be active in distributing funds in the community over the coming year — with $12m budgeted for distributions — as it carried out engagement work to finalise its community well-being strategy.

When asked if ECT and Eastland Port were opposed to re-establishing the Gisborne-Wairoa rail line, Mr Reynolds was unequivocal in saying “no”.

He pointed out ECT had invested money into an independent feasibility study around reopening the line.

Neither ECT nor Eastland Group had discussed taking a position on the rail line. They now awaited the business case.

“We wait with interest.”

Asked at the meeting, Dr Reynolds declined to reveal the underlying reasons why four Eastland Group directors retired or resigned from the board on the same day in May.

“Change is never a straightforward or easy thing to achieve. The board of Eastland Group, for the year we’ve just finished, had a supernumerary board member — so there was always going to be one board member fewer.”

After emphasising that they were high-quality directors and the split was not about that, he said they had been “struggling” with the direction the company wanted to take.

The ECT board, as the owner of Eastland Group, became aware that there were issues that had not entirely been resolved within the Eastland Group board.

“There comes a point when you are the shareholders that you decide you need to take an action. So, we had a discussion with Eastland Group Ltd board and as a result of those discussions, a number of the board members did retire.

“It is really important to make it absolutely unequivocal that all of these directors were excellent directors, all of them were discharging their director duties with absolute integrity. They were all capable, excellent directors.

“However, they were struggling. We as shareholders spoke with them and they took a course of action.”

A process was under way to appoint three new directors to a six-person board.

After taking questions from the floor, there was a stream of congratulatory messages from about a dozen ECT grant recipients, who acknowledged the community benefits those grants had brought.

Despite poor weather, about 100 people attended the meeting last night at the Waikanae Surf Lifesaving Club.