(calm music)
Invercargill's looking a bit fucked.
This city, which Mick Jagger once described
as the asshole of the world,
is experiencing a deluge of challenges right now.
Whole streets are almost completely shut down
for renovations that some fear will never come.
And the potential closure of two of its primary industries
have left it looking like one of the bleakest places
in the country to be a young person.
We headed down to Invers to find out
how bad things really are.
(dramatic music)
What do you guys think of
the state of Invercargill right now?
(laughs) No comment.
No comment?
It's a bit messed up
Yeah, it's just a bit messed up, we've got nothing
positive to say at the moment.
I used to, not anymore.
What did you used to think was great about Invercargill?
I loved it, everyone was ya know
here to work, have a good time
and no one's here to have work and have a good time anymore.
Do you think that's reflective of how
a lot of young people feel about the city right now?
Yeah.
Yep, yep.
A big majority.
What's the conversation at your school at the moment
around wanting to stay in Invercargill?
Nearly all my friends aren't staying,
so the majority of them are either going to Otago
or Auckland, so I wasn't planning to stay.
Two of the city's economic pillars are shaky,
with one of the area's biggest employers, the Tiwai Smelter,
possibly closing down, which would lose Invercargill 2500
related jobs and half a billion dollars of annual revenue.
And the Southern Institute of Technology
likely to lose most of its students
on proposed changes to national polytechnics.
In 2001, the Southern Institute of Technology
made the bold move of introducing a zero fees scheme,
making them the only tuition free
tertiary education provider in Aotearoa.
However in 2019, the government announced
they plan to amalgamate all of the country's
polytechs into one national institute.
This amalgamation will likely mean SIT will lose their Zero
Fees scheme, which will have huge consequences for the city.
The Zero Fees scheme at SIT has been a huge drawcard
for Invercargill, and the year before Zero Fees was
introduced there were only 1500 full-time students at SIT.
In recent years, there's been almost 5000,
more importantly is how many of these students are coming
from outside of Invercargill with almost 40% of students
coming from elsewhere in New Zealand or overseas.
And this has become one of the main lines of Invercargill
introducing new people and talent into the community,
with 35-50% of graduates from here
staying and working in Invercargill.
What drew you guys down to study at SIT
instead of going to a polytech like in Auckland
or even around the Bay of Islands?
It was definitely the Zero Fees scheme,
you know it's a lot cheaper.
If you guys had been looking
for a polytech to study at and Invercargill
and SIT didn't have Zero Fees scheme,
would you have thought to come down here?
I guess not, no.
Probably not, no.
No, definitely not.
Alongside education
to draw people to Invercargill,
the city needs opportunities to keep them here.
For the past 50 years, one of the region's biggest employers
has been the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter.
A massive facility south of Invercargill
that is the country's only creator of aluminium.
As one of the region's largest employers
the loss of Tiwai would be an incredible blow
to the already struggling city.
The smelter's owners, Rio Tinto, are currently reviewing
whether to close the plant or downsize.
Mostly due to power infrastructure costs,
which they say are unfair,
and are petitioning the government to reduce.
You see this smelter requires 13%
of all power generated in New Zealand to run.
So much power, in fact, that when the owners of the smelter
proposed building it in the 1960s, they actually needed
to build a whole new power station to do so and proposed
to build the Manapouri Power Station in Fiordland.
Over the following decades, the owners of the Tiwai Smelter
and the government have been in a constant
tussle over obligations and pricing
around power generated at Manapouri.
This current fight for fairness campaign
says that it's unfair that Tiwai has had to spend
$200 million in infrastructure costs
to move some of this power up north.
(gentle music)
The government clearly sees a lot of worth
in the smelter for the region,
bailing it out with a $30 million grant in 2013,
which then Prime Minister John Key said would be the last.
But Tiwai don't see changes in transmission pricing
as a bailout, they see it as fixing a flawed system,
a system which is currently being evaluated
by the Electricity Authority.
But the Tiwai operators say the expected drop in costs
from this review wouldn't be applied for four or five years.
Which would be too late.
And so under the weight of the current costs,
the plant's owners, Rio Tinto, are currently reviewing
whether to downsize or shut down Tiwai
leaving the 2500 people, whose employment
relies on the plant, worried for their futures.
One of these workers is Glen Fitzgerald,
who's been at the Tiwai Smelter for the past eight years.
I'm putting up a new garage at the moment,
so decided that I'd borrow some more money against the house
went to see the bank and they lent me $50,000.
A week after I'd confirmed that,
Tiwai came out and said they were closing it.
My property might not be worth as much.
The conversation around Tiwai,
what is it like at the moment?
Are their people that are angry, upset?
What does that look like?
I think there's probably a lot of young families
and that that are probably concerned that, ya know,
sorta big mortgages, probably couldn't handle paying
their mortgage with a lower paying job and that sorta thing.
It hangs over people's head.
'Cause that's the thing is that it's not
just that Tiwai is such a big employer,
it's that it's a really well paying employer.
It's been the best paying in Southland, probably.
So let's say you did, Tiwai does close and you lose your
job there and you did wanna stick around Invercargill,
what would your options look like, do you think?
Hopefully I could find a job and still fund my mortgage.
Where would you look?
Good question.
The Invercargill Chamber of Commerce
and Smelter are campaigning to have the government
reduce the infrastructure obligations.
I went along to one of their rallies.
A strategic review has never been called at Tiwai.
It's a fairly serious process,
something that Rio Tinto conducts rarely, and in this case
it's looking at three options for the Smelter.
The first one is our ideal scenario
and that is full production but at a serious,
significant reset in power pricing.
The second option is looking at curtailment.
So at the moment we've got four potlines
running at the Smelter, it's looking at reducing
that to three or two potline operation.
That would also require a fairly significant
reset in power price.
And the third option which is being considered
is closure, and so that's involved a series of meetings
with people coming to site to understand
what would that process look like,
what would it cost and how would we go about doing it.
So how long have you been at Tiwai?
Just over five years.
I'm a chemical engineer who kinda looks after
planning and production and improvement projects.
Without Tiwai, there's not a whole lot
of options for me in Southland,
if there are no opportunities at one or two other workplaces
then we'd have to leave the region.
It would mean that we'd have to sell our house
and leave Southland and start again somewhere,
and ya know, the kids would have to leave their lives
and Invercargill's a great place for a family.
(dramatic music)
Tim Shadbolt has been mayor of Invercargill
for much of the past 30 years,
he's seen the city through some of its highest highs
and now through one of its lowest lows.
It feels now at the moment like we're a city under siege,
there's so many issues that are coming up and coming at us,
I just wonder what's gonna be emerging next.
Kia ora Tim.
Welcome.
Thank you so much for having me,
the sun's actually come out again.
Yes, oh the sun always shines in Invercargill.
Southland and Invercargill are experiencing
an unprecedented number of challenges
all at once at the moment.
You've been mayor down here for the last 21 years,
how does this compare to challenges
that this city's faced in the past?
Well I think we're better off than in the past
because I arrived here in 1993 and we were the fastest
declining city in New Zealand or Australia.
Right.
Present conditions, economically especially,
are bountiful compared with what they were in those days.
If we hadn't been through it before,
I think we'd probably be more nervous,
but we've been through some tough times down here
and we've come through it in remarkably good shape.
Are you guys worried about the future of the city?
Yeah I guess worried,
but I don't wanna be here much longer, so yeah.
My kids won't be growing up here, the way this is going, no.