Chester Borrows: Listening to the little people

Chester Borrows, MP for Whanganui

FIRST discovered in that wonderful decade, the 1950s, Kapuni has been providing natural gas for New Zealanders for more than 50 years.

To say that natural gas production revitalised the local economy would be an understatement. We have almost come to take for granted Kapuni's impact on the region over more than two generations.

The Shell Todd 2016 3D seismic survey involved 1400 landowners in South Taranaki -- and this survey was, to me, the ultimate in good corporate citizenship as Shell Todd Oil sought community feedback on improving future projects and shaping how they engage with us going forward.

Inevitably with these sorts of exploration projects, there is some disruption and nuisance, but their respectful way of both engaging with, and supporting, the community they work with, is very well done.

They have contributed generously to local schools, rugby clubs and fire brigades and even their international staff declaring that Kaponga Dairy serves the best hamburgers globally has done us no harm on the world stage.

The results of the survey make interesting reading when you see that 70 per cent of the workforce are local and half of the project's crew had affiliations with local iwi.

Using local content is a big part of the almost $16 million injected into the New Zealand economy, with accommodation, catering and fuel making up some of the $6.9 million local spend. Of the nearly $16 million budget, 37 per cent is spent in South Taranaki and a further 37 per cent goes to the wider Taranaki region.

Wages, local access and that all-important social investment demonstrate the genuine care that this company have for the local economy, the community and our environment. The positive flow-on effects for the entire Whanganui electorate and wider regions are obvious.

A huge 94 per cent of the feedback was positive and what I liked is that Shell Todd appear to be learning from concerns expressed about issues like the impact on livestock or confusion around the work schedule. When concerns were raised, the company responded with goodwill and compassion.

They were listening.

We are always sceptical when big corporates are dealing with small communities. Throughout the electorate all sorts of organisations have to regularly deal with big companies or government organisations over a variety of issues and projects.

Shell Todd have set a very high benchmark for the way corporates interact with their communities. From here on in, we should hold other big organisations to similar account when working with our communities.