Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets
Good morning.
First, let us reiterate the thanks already given to civic leaders, Ministers, Mayors, parliamentarians past and present, union leaders, business leaders and members of the public gathered here today.
Let us also acknowledge the KiwiRail workers of Dunedin, especially the former and current workers here at Hillside today.
You asked. We delivered.
It is important to mark history. Knowing where we have come from helps us understand where we are going.
Hillside Workshops have been a mainstay of New Zealand’s industrial heritage for a century.
A little over a decade ago the staff numbers were down to 12, and Hillside was closing.
Today, 60 people work in the mechanical depot and 50 track workers serving the region have shifted here from Cumberland Street.
The reason that Hillside is alive and well as you see it today is that in 2019, the Honourable Shane Jones allocated $20 million to start the masterplanning, demolition and rebuild of the main mechanical workshop here at Hillside.
The masterplan was followed through when the Government approved $85 million more for the site, which included shifting the network operation here and funding the assembly of 1,500 wagons here in Dunedin.
Our decisions, and your advocacy, saved Hillside Workshops.
Dozens of people, almost entirely from Otago, have been employed and are learning technical mechanical engineering skills. Right here. Right now.
The Honourable Mark Patterson visited last year and spoke with a mechanical engineer who grew up in Dunedin and worked at Fisher and Paykel.
His Fisher and Paykel role was made redundant, and he shifted to Australia, but the Hillside Workshop redevelopment brought him home. Like many others.
These are technical minds and hands being put to work – and work is a matter of dignity and contribution.
Hillside Workshops are an emblem of New Zealand’s industrial heritage.
This city is famed for Julius Vogel who saw New Zealand as a nation, not a collection of regions. He connected the provinces by rail and built lines that stretched from Bluff to Kawakawa, and eventually connecting us as a nation with main trunks. He built more lines in ten years than in the following 130.
We are committed to making sure rail has a strong future in this country and it rests on KiwiRail being able to serve its customers with assets that are fit for the job.
That is what we have done here.
The new, high-quality wagons that are being built here at Hillside are part of our Ministry’s strategy for rail.
They will lift service reliability, allowing KiwiRail to better deliver for their existing freight customers. In turn, that will attract more customers and grow freight volumes.
Now it’s up to KiwiRail to deliver, and it’s up to freight movers to “think rail”. Use it or lose it.
As you know, Dunedin is a dynamic city with a long history of contribution to the country’s engineering and technology sectors.
Our regional investments help build this capability in the city – from establishing the Inventors Lab and Centre of Digital Excellence to funding engineering equipment and support for technology manufacturing.
The Hillside redevelopment has also redefined KiwiRail’s footprint in Dunedin, freeing up its landholdings for wider industrial development. That means opportunities for investment here. That means jobs here.
It’s a great privilege today to officially, albeit belatedly, declare the Hillside Workshops open.
We don’t just the start the job, we finish it.
Thank you to everyone who has been involved in this successful project and who are continuing to make it deliver.
Thank you very much.
