Hawke's Bay Regional Council's incoming chief executive, James Palmer, tells Mark Story he hopes to provide staff with a clear vision.
Tell us a bit about your immediate background.
My recent career has been at the Ministry for the Environment, leading strategies, policies and initiatives for transforming the way we do
environmental management in New Zealand. It has also involved a decade of working with the primary sector to drive innovation in the way we use our natural resources to underpin our economy. In the last 16 months I have been at the Regional Council overseeing reform of freshwater management in the region and most recently I undertook the review of the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme.
In your new post how do you balance the interfacing of the political and operational aspects of council? Is it tough to know where one stops, and the other starts?
All my career has involved working closely with elected politicians to help them find solutions to the challenges we face as a community. My approach is to be fearless in providing free and frank advice, and then faithfully implementing their decisions once properly determined through the democratic process. I find that if politicians know you can be relied upon to provide pragmatic, well-considered advice that helps them make better decisions, and you can be trusted to implement their intentions, then they have more confidence in letting you get on with running the business. In my view there is no substitute for running public organisations transparently with a willingness to have your performance measured and reported on. This makes the whole system work most effectively and ensures you are able to serve the community to best effect, but it can take a leap of faith for some people.
The incumbent chief executive is a staunch advocate of the Ruataniwha Dam - are you?
No. Advocacy for the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme appropriately rests with the council's investment company, HBRIC Ltd. My job, first and foremost, is as the environmental regulator of the scheme and the Tukituki catchment on behalf of the whole community. I live near the Tukituki River and my family and I swim in it so I have a strong interest in its health and protection. Having recently reviewed the scheme for the council I am acutely aware of the challenges in the catchment both with and without water storage. I believe the scheme would bring many benefits and can be a key lever for improving the health of the river but it is not without risks, which the council is presently working through with my support.
You've chosen a tough juncture to take the helm. What are you goals for your first six months?
Building trust and confidence with the councillors and the community that the Regional Council is responsive to their needs and expectations is my most pressing goal. I realise this will take longer than six months but I want to be well on the way to achieving this by then. The council has come in for a lot of criticism in recent years, some deserved and some not so. We need to get out and listen to our community about that they expect from us, and share more about the challenges we face and what we are doing - and can do better. The criticisms of the Regional Council have also hit the council's staff hard, all of whom are passionate about what they do for the region they love. So my other key goal is providing the staff of the council with clear vision and direction, as well as support and confidence in the work they do every day for our communities. I also want to ensure we have the systems and processes in place so that another incident like Havelock North's water contamination never happens again and we have a clear plan developed for the management of water in the Heretaunga area - this is the 'TANK' Plan Change.