Committed to Southland
Nicol has been chairman of Environment Southland for nine years (three terms).
All up he will have served six terms on the regional council when he stands down at the local
body elections in October this year, but he well remembers those early days.
“The first term was quite a learning curve. There’s a lot of reading and you’re making sure you don’t miss things. As time goes on it gets easier to pinpoint the things you need to focus on and deal with.”
Nicol quickly took up the role of deputy chair – in his second and third terms – and he has chaired many Council committees over the years, motivated by a drive to make a difference.
“The problems are wicked problems and there’s the challenge of trying to stick around and solve them. If it was easy I would’ve probably gotten bored.”
A lot of factors come into play. Nicol says central government can knock you sideways.
“But I’ve been here long enough to be able to look back and say, well actually we have made lots of progress and there are a lot of things we can be proud of.”
One of those things is the Southland Water and Land Plan.
“We probably have the most up-to-date plan in the country because everyone else is on pause.
It is a good foundation to move forward on. It’s been through a robust process, which was slower and more costly than I would have liked, but at the end of the day it is there and it’s ours.”
The aim, says Nicol, is always to be connected with the community and to be on the journey together.
He cites freshwater as an example: there are currently 37 catchment groups across Southland working to improve land
practices that impact water quality, yet a decade or so ago we had none.
“Ten or 12 years ago, a lot of people would say, ‘really, have we got a problem’?
The conversations now, in most cases are, ‘what do we have to do’.
That’s really the community saying, ‘this is our place and we want to be part of the future and part of the solution’. And I think that’s really powerful.”
Nicol says it’s important to him to prepare the way for new councillors coming on to the regional council as many are unaware of the ‘depth and breadth’ of the work.
“You want to leave an organisation in good shape so the next generation of councillors has a platform to work on.”
He says we live in a world where there are expectations of instant results, but it’s not like that when it comes to making progress on the complex matters regional councils deal with.
“With the environment and local government, nothing’s instant. You just have to keep working away. Over time, if you have your destination firmly fixed in your head, you get there.”
Nicol was born in Southland and raised on the family’s 260-hectare sheep farm at Tetua in the hills beyond Tuatapere, in western Southland.
The eldest of six children – five boys and one girl – he attended primary school locally and secondary school in Invercargill, boarding at Southland Boys’ High School.
He followed his parents into farming, working on the family’s farm and buying his own 200-hectare property at nearby Alton in 1976.
The property is a mix of “flats and hills” with the Alton stream meandering through.
Currently he leases 20 hectares to a neighbouring dairy farm and stocks the rest with composite Coopworth/Texel sheep, and is going into this winter with 1600 breeding ewes, about 360 hoggets and 20 rams.
In the beginning, with big debts to pay down, Nicol worked both his farm and the family farm.
“I did double lambings for a long time, which was pretty exhausting.”
When the recession of the 80s hit, times got very tough.
“The family farm was sold and my father grieved.
At the time my farm probably had negative equity and we hung on by our fingernails. My wife, Anne, worked right through, which kept us afloat.
You question all your past decisions, but eventually farming picked up and I felt motivated to start improvements again.”
Nicol married Anne, an Australian from New South Wales, in 1985 after promising her dad they would visit every two years, which they have.
Anne originally came to Southland for work after graduating from teachers training college and is the current chair of the Tūātapere Te Waewae Community Board.
The couple has three grown children – a daughter and two sons.
Grandchildren are part of the picture now, too, and ensuring Southland continues to thrive for future generations is a driving force behind Nicol’s work for Environment Southland and his involvement in other community projects.
“I want my grandchildren and greatgrandchildren to enjoy the special environment that Southland offers in the future and have the opportunity for exciting jobs without having to go further afield,” says Nicol.
He sees the economic potential, “if we can just land some things”, aquaculture being one of them.
While returning to the family farm is not in his children’s future and the time will come when Nicol and Anne will have to sell off some of their farm, they do intend to stay on the land.
“We have no ambition to go and live in Central Otago like many people, when we’ve got a good view out of our windows. You can see the native trees, the Longwoods forest."
"You can see the Takitimu mountains from the top of the hill, and on a good day looking out the other side, you can see the coast and Stewart Island."
"So, it’s a special part of the world.”
Both politics and community service have always been a part of Nicol’s life.
A “life changing” experience on an Outward Bound course as a young man gave him insight into his abilities and the power of a unified team working together, which became a precursor to the leadership roles that would follow.
“You realise your potential is greater than you think.”
He became tour leader on a youth exchange to Australia and went on to join the National Party as a Young National.
After attending a Young Nationals conference in Marlborough, he decided to organise one at Borland Lodge and attracted good numbers.
“We [Young Nationals] had good debates that opened your mind and a reputation for good parties.”
Nicol became chairman of the Young Nationals in 1976 and divisional chair of Otago/Southland in 1979.
“We had some of the strongest numbers in the country and I’ve always had some involvement in the party since.” In Southland, when community boards came on the scene, Nicol stood for the Tūātapere Community Board, serving from 1989 to 1998.
When the community faced the prospect of losing its maternity hospital and later, its doctor due to health reforms, Nicol took up the fight, a move that would keep him highly involved in two health trusts for the next 21 years.
He was chairman of the Tūātapere Hospital Trust to save the hospital and involved in setting up and running a second trust to buy the doctor’s practice and provide associated services such as district nursing.
It meant taking on governance roles, negotiating with DHBs and using his political connections and nous to save the maternity hospital.
“With Bill English’s help I managed to get a bill through parliament that allowed us to close the hospital when there were no patients.”
Nicol is proud of the long-standing relationship the Council has with iwi, which he says, is based on trust and respect.
In recent times he has been focused on the Government’s regional deals opportunities, which requires local government to work together.
“Some people think we are just an environmental agency. We aren’t, we’re more than that.”
Currently, Nicol is the chair of Southland’s mayoral forum, a role he describes as “a privilege”.
The forum is made up of the regional council chairman, mayors, their deputies and chief executives.
It provides the opportunity for the councils to work together in a united way on pressing matters, including creating efficiencies, for the benefit of Southlanders.
Southland District Council came up with an amalgamation proposal that has put the debate on the public agenda and Nicol’s view is that it’s a topic worth discussing.
“Because I’m retiring, I’m probably in a more neutral position to be asking the questions of the community: what should local government look like in Southland going forward?”
Nicol can see the merit in one territorial plan for Southland instead of each local council having one.
“In that plan there might be things that pertain to different areas, but you’d get consistency across the region and eventually, you’d save on staff costs, too.
“Over time, if there was a will to work together, you could do vertical integration.”
He also thinks the big areas of responsibility like flood protection, roading and three waters – drinking water, wastewater and stormwater, would benefit from being run by a board or council controlled organisation.
“Your big ticket items would be better run by a CCO where you’ve still got the oversight, but have some professional directors that provide consistency and fill skill gaps.”
Whatever the model, he says affordability and having good governance are essential.
“We really have to be concentrating on coming up with rates people can afford to pay and ensuring we have governance that actually has the oversight.”
Nicol says anyone coming onto a Council would do well not to do so with a single issue focus.
“Once you’re in the door and you’ve taken your oath, you’re there to do the best for Southland.”
