Guest Editorial: Chances await for economy

Is Whangarei hiding its light under a bushel and is it sitting on two economic winners that could turn the Northland economy around?

On a trip up the river to a boatyard last week, I was stunned by the substantial increase in visiting overseas yachts and ship-repair work now undertaken in these upper reaches.

Clearly, the city is a top destination in the South Pacific for ocean-cruising yachts and what is happening now may be the tip of an iceberg.

In many respects, this is better than the cruise-liner business that the Bay of Islands enjoys because the local content in servicing overseas yachts is proportionally far greater than running shore cruises and taking port dues for the super liners.

Combine the Town Basin business with the new marina at One Tree Point and growth in exports through Marsden Point and you get an even bigger and rosier picture.

Whangarei has lived through so many manufacturing bubbles - the failure of security printing, the folding up of the glass works and the on-again-off-again trials of large shipbuilding and repair work at the old WECO slipway site.

Whangarei will need bigger and better facilities for the yachties and Marsden Point needs a rail connection.

The city could do with a few more tourist-orientated facilities. The Hundertwasser museum is a fantastic idea and a good start.

I interviewed Hundertwasser when he arrived in New Zealand in the yacht, Regentag, in 1976.

It's hard to realise he spent so much of his life in this country. In his home town of Vienna, he is worshipped in the art world and has left a legacy of many weird and wonderful, yet fantastic, buildings and other edifices. They attract thousands of tourists each year.

What Whangarei is failing to do is to excite its young folk about the city's bright future and make a big effort to reduce youth unemployment and get them usefully employed, so they, too, can become a part of it all.