I’ve written a few times about the growth in population in Central Otago in my six years of being mayor, where we have seen the same number of people move to our district as lived in Cromwell when I took up the role.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be one of those newcomers to this place? It’s that long ago for me I can’t really remember. I know I went to the Clyde pub one night and once someone realised I’d moved here, I got taken around to meet folk. Also, I had kids which made meeting people easier. And I looked like most everyone else, and I grew up in a small Otago town so I knew most of the ways of the place.

But what if I hadn’t? What if I came from overseas, from a different culture, from a totally different life?

 In November 2020, the council agreed to apply to join the Welcoming Communities Te Waharoa ki ngā Hapori programme which supports high growth communities to create welcoming and inclusive environments for newcomers, including recent migrants and New Zealanders who have moved to Central Otago from another part of New Zealand.

 Deborah Benge took up the Welcoming Communities officer role in August and has torn into the mahi. Included in that work has been putting out a survey which 95 newcomers responded to. Councillors got to see the results at their December meeting last year and I for one found them quite fascinating and in some cases food for thought.

For instance; of the newcomers who responded, just over a third moved here from overseas.  Of those who moved from within New Zealand, a quarter came from Otago while the next biggest cohort came from Auckland and north (21 per cent). That may have contributed to the interesting statistic that 68 per cent of the people who responded came here from places of 20,000+ population. 

One figure that surprised many is the split between Alexandra/Clyde (37 per cent) and Cromwell/Pisa Moorings (41 per cent) and the rest of Central (22 per cent), with many presuming Cromwell would have a far greater share.

Some food for thought came through. Sadly 10 per cent of respondents have not felt welcomed coming into our place, with 22 per cent feeling our community was not accepting of different cultures and beliefs. That is really heart-breaking to me when I think what it must be like to try to start afresh in some place completely different. 

Maybe a good resolution to start the year would be for us all to think how we can make those numbers shrink to nothing.