Ko ranginui kei runga (Ranginui above)
Ko papatuanuku kei raro (Papatuanuku below)
Ko nga tangata kei waenganui (And people in between)
Tihei Mauri Ora (Rejoice in life)
Our second virtual AGM (2022) was held on 8 June 2022 late in the afternoon, and 104 attended from all over the country. It was gratifying to see your involvement and your care for the organisation you own.
I wanted to give you a brief overview of the meeting.
Firstly, our organisation and planning as a career is growing. We topped 3000 members in 2021. We expect even greater membership in 2022.
As a profession, we must continue to place the values we hold dear uppermost in everything we do – including the environment (climate change), wellbeing of all New Zealanders, and creating the places and spaces for a better country. These are the hallmarks of a thriving nation, and it is the people of that nation, Aotearoa New Zealand that we as a profession and an Institute serve.
Your Board have certainly focused on these aspirations during 2021. We have identified a Board Plan including key strategic initiatives that we want to see achieved. This plan is being shaped and finalised over the next short while. Three vital cores within it are: our attention as a Board and profession to Climate Change; the digital transformation planning is going through; and the current RM reform the Government is leading.
These are large and mission critical pieces of work for Aotearoa New Zealand and also for planning as a whole. Next year, expect to see a whole lot of progress as we concentrate on these key platforms and report back to you on work we are doing.
Suffice it to say now, though, that in the area of RM reform we have already been very active in 2021 and will continue to be as this reform gathers pace. It is undoubtedly the largest reform of resource management and planning which our generation is likely to see. It requires, of all of us, participation and advocacy on a scale never previously contemplated.
As an organisation during 2021, we have submitted on multiple pieces of legislation, policy reform and other documents as they have arisen. We have also met with the Minister and advocated vigorously. We are grateful for the profession’s on-going engagement in this process. The questions you asked about the RM reform at the AGM are evidence of your interest.
Yet – if you are on the fringes of the RM reforms as a planner, I urge you to become fully involved and fully aware.
The AGM also gave me an opportunity to deliver my personal thanks and organisation’s appreciation to Andrea Harris and Nesh Pillay. Andrea took up the vacant Central North island Board position during the year, and Nesh has filled the Auckland Board position. Both are superbly qualified and experienced planners, highly technically competent. We’re fortunate as an organisation in that they are dedicated to the planning profession, wanting to lead and shape it as we go forward.
Likewise, I am grateful to the mahi of the rest of the Board, which serves the Institute tenaciously and with great goodwill. In particular, I acknowledge the tremendous work done by Luke O’Dwyer on the Board whose passing was a huge loss. Moe mai ra e Luke.
Finally, 2021 was a good financial year. While it is pleasing that the last two years of Covid have not forced us to dip into reserves, as an organisation we must look to the considerable demands of the future.
RM reform will loom large with significant staff and Board resource committed. For this and because of the on-going financial health of the Institute, we resolved during the AGM that membership fees from 2023 onwards will be indexed to CPI. This means, they’ll increase (for the first time since 2015).
Thank you for your involvement and interest in the Institute and future of planning.
Ngā mihi mahana
Reginald Proffit
