Mr. Michael Redman
Mayor of Hamilton

Background

• Started business at the youthful yet mature age of twenty.
• Did not receive tertiary qualifications; however he definitely encouraged the VTM-NZ students to undertake tertiary studies.
• Has a strictly business background with no council or political experience, until elected as Mayor of Hamilton City.
• Remained involved in the private sector for twenty years until he stood for local council elections in Hamilton.
• Established the New Zealand Breakers Basketball Franchise, in the Australian National Basketball League (ANBL).

Local Council
Mr. Redman is very supportive of the fact that local council have become more independent and can now differentiate between local and regional councils.
The Mayor was adamant that city councils are not the agent of central government, as they receive no funding from the national ruling body.
With the 2002 Local Government Act amended, local councils gained considerably more responsibility for social, economic, cultural and environmental issues.

Hope for Hamilton
The Mayor believes Hamilton City has the potential to become a major player in New Zealand. When Mr. Redman came into office, he had one main focus: to rid Hamilton of ‘a logo.’ He believes the costs of advertising and marketing campaign could instead be used to improve and beautify the city, not only for those who visit, but more importantly for Hamiltonians.

The future
The Mayor believes that Hamilton has the potential to cement itself as an events centre in New Zealand. Recently, Hamilton has won the right to host the V8 Supercar Race, ahead of Auckland and Wellington.
The Hamilton City Council has approved a new state of the art sporting facility at Claudelands, encouraging sporting growth, and is looking forward to being the biggest city in geographic proximity, to the Rowing World Championships in 2010, at Lake Karapiro.

Skills shortage
Mr. Redman admits that New Zealand is lacking in the skills it needs to move the country forward economically. Hamilton has attracted skilled employees for big companies with its attractive natural resources and strategic location. AFFCO has relocated its headquarters to Hamilton to maximise this potential.

Identifying local council
The Mayor believes his office should be contactable for any reason whatsoever. In the past he admits that local councils were viewed as a means of fixing “Roads, rates and rubbish.” His vision is to rectify this perception to become a council contactable under any circumstance, but made it clear that the council can only act on issues within the legal framework.

Student thoughts
I believe that the Mayor, Michael Redman is a very refreshing, innovative and people thinking person. I, alongside the other VTM-NZ students, have been very impressed by the Mayor’s knowledge, passion and personal hope for Hamilton to become a city of the future. He spoke very genuinely and acknowledged that youth involvement in decision making is integral, which I thought is very wise.

Quotes
“Marketing cannot overcome a lack of substantiation.”
“I see Hamilton as a business of 135,000 shareholders and I am the Chairman of a Board of fourteen.”
“We get what we want to do within the legislative framework.”
“We need young people getting involved in the decision making process; they are our future.”

Themes

• People - Mr. Redman thinks always about the people of Hamilton, it’s all about the people.
• Passion - the Mayor was very passionate about his role and it most definitely rubbed off on us as students.

Contributed by: Luke MacLean-McMahon