Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

Every politician aspires to deliver better quality and higher paying jobs for residents.

This ambition can burden small towns where their councils are promising to lure businesses or tourists into the region by delivering one-off projects claimed to be ‘game-changers'.

Tauranga City Council's draft Long Term Plan does not include any projects that are silver bullets to change our economy. I believe it's an accumulation of doing small things really well that will drive the economy.

We propose to review our role in economic development by this Christmas. I hope we can refocus our priorities on increasing the city's productivity – creating more economic value per person.

Over the last few decades, it seems like Tauranga has relied on the tourism and retail sectors as our economic saviours. These sectors should have a strong supporting role in our economy, rather than have a leading role. I believe these sectors will be strong if the rest of our economy is strong.

It's never been a better time to be an entrepreneur in the Bay. We have NZ's strongest angel investor network wanting to invest in start-up businesses. Wharf42's Meteoroid Programme digitally connects businesses directly to Silicone Valley in California. The demand for co-working spaces are providing support networks for entrepreneurs who want to work alone, together.

There are a lot of great things happening without Council directly intervening. They are happening because the city is a great place to do business. Therefore, we need to know when to intervene to enable stuff to happen, but also know when to get out of the way.

The draft plan will also ask whether businesses support a 5 per cent increase in the economic development targeted rate - paid only by commercial properties. The increase means 95 per cent of commercial properties would still pay less than $100 each year towards economic development, in addition to their general rates.

The extra $107,000 of funding is proposed to help open doors. It can provide a forum to ensure the new Tertiary Education Partnership connects with local industries. Tauranga is becoming NZ's leader in marine research – we can help open doors to overseas markets and institutions that will make it easier to commercialise the research.

The extra funding can also advance Priority One's Tauranga Business Case campaign, which demonstrates why companies should relocate to Tauranga.

Feel free to email me your thoughts (matt.cowley@tauranga.govt.nz), call/text me on 027 6989 548, and follow me at www.facebook.com/a.younger.voice