Date/Time
Date(s) - Wed 8 July
12:00
New Zealand’s biggest long-term challenges are written into the places we live: a natural environment in decline, an energy system still tethered to imported fossil fuels, a housing market that has locked out a generation, and a largest city performing below its potential. In each case, the harder problem is not a shortage of ideas but the difficulty of holding a course when settings are introduced by one government and reversed by the next.
Moderated by Sarah Sinclair, this webinar brings together four contributors to Facing Up to Our Future: Challenges and Choices for New Zealand to examine the structural choices in front of us. Dr Greg Severinsen on reversing environmental decline through binding limits rather than voluntary rules; Dr Rod Carr on an energy transition he argues is now a political choice, not a technological one; Emeritus Professor Peter Davis on a housing system in structural failure rather than cyclical shortage; and Mark Thomas on why Auckland’s underperformance is a national penalty, not a regional issue.
Each of the four chapters returns to the same core message: the timescales of climate, infrastructure and the natural environment far outrun the electoral cycle that shapes our response to them. This session explores the practical steps available to New Zealand, and how to embed them so they endure beyond any one term.
Speakers
Dr Greg Severinsen
Dr Greg Severinsen is Reform Director at the Environmental Defence Society (EDS), where he leads its work on reforming New Zealand’s environmental management system. He has practised resource management law at a major law firm and worked as a policy analyst at the Ministry for the Environment, and has published, presented and taught widely on environmental and resource management law. He holds a PhD, an honours degree in law, and a BA.
In Facing Up to Our Future he writes on steps for environmental improvement and true sustainability in New Zealand.
Dr Rod Carr
Dr Rod Carr recently completed a five-year term as the inaugural Chair of New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission, and is a director of ASB Bank. His earlier career spans business, academia and public institutions: he has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury, Chair of the Board of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and, for five years, Chair of the National Infrastructure Advisory Board. He has held a wide range of other governance roles, including with Lyttelton Port, the Christchurch Arts Centre and the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal Trust. He holds five degrees, among them an honours degree in law from the University of Otago and a PhD in insurance and risk management.
In Facing Up to Our Future he writes on a strategic agenda for New Zealand’s energy transition.
Mark Thomas
Mark Thomas is the Managing Director of urban advisory firm Serviceworks and Regional Lead for the Smart Cities Council. An expert in city performance and smart cities, he specialises in urban mobility, city digitisation, new technology and climate tech. He is passionate about using technology to address urban climate challenges, build economic opportunity and strengthen citizen engagement, and is a regular international speaker and media commentator on these issues. He founded Serviceworks and served for six years as an elected member of Auckland local government. His work has been recognised with a Leadership Award for Outstanding Contribution towards building Smart Cities and the Asia Smart Cities Excellence Award, and he has been named among the Top 50 Most Impactful Smart Cities Leaders. He has held governance roles across private, public and not-for-profit organisations. He leads the State of the City project on Auckland.
In Facing Up to Our Future he writes on Auckland’s unrealised primacy and the national economic choice it represents.
Emeritus Professor Peter Davis
Peter Davis is an Emeritus Professor whose long academic career at the University of Auckland spanned medical sociology, public health and social statistics.
His research and writing have consistently focused on the structures that shape wellbeing in New Zealand, from the health system to the distribution of wealth and the design of public institutions. As editor of Facing Up to Our Future: Challenges and Choices for New Zealand, he drew together the 21 contributors whose work makes up this collection.
In the book he writes on tax and the funding of our collective goods and services, on housing, and, with Robin Gauld and Dylan Mordaunt, on stabilising the health system.