Almost every conference you go to you come away with a souvenir of some sort: a pen, a coffee mug, a keychain. I have just been to the South Island Election Conference in Christchurch, and Minister for the South Island James Meager offered to name a new bridge just outside of Ashburton after me. As conference keepsakes go that’s quite a doozey — and I assume he was joking. If not, I apologise to the good folk of Ashburton, you are about to have to spend the next few decades as I have spent the last few decades — spelling out my surname. Amusing, hopefully, as this anecdote is, it serves a purpose. This conference was called by all the business chambers of commerce in the South Island, and it was called to discuss just what politicians — who, in the relevant positions which make a difference, are almost all North Islanders — could do for the South Island. This was a local conference about local issues — albeit that the South Island is the size of a large chunk of Europe and has an economy to match some of the smaller states in that continent. Meager’s quip came as part of a discussion about the South Island Plan and what it had to offer for the folk of, say, Cromwell or Oamaru. The plan, as outlayed, has plenty to say about Christchurch, a little to say about Queenstown, and only sporadically mentions points in between. It was later disparaged by Labour as being a hodgepodge of reheated promises from successive governments, and pork barrel politicking at its worst. Labour may well have a point about any or all of its assertions but that’s not relevant to the point I am trying to make. National, unlike anyone else, showed up with a plan. It set out what money it had spent in the South, and outlined what it planned to spend in the future. What the chambers had hoped for was that political parties would engage with them on the economic issues as they saw them, and give some consideration to the policy goal that they hope to achieve — a sizeable boost in per capita GDP in the South Island in the next few years. And they did more than have a plan; they actually seemed to know something about the land of which they spoke. Finance Minister Niciola Willis namechecked Dunedin’s United Machinists and half a dozen Christchurch businesses besides, Transport Minister Chris Bishop seems to have a photographic memory of every stretch of tarseal in the South Island, and Christchurch-born Prime Minister Christopher Luxon put in a plug for his old high school in a big First XV match being played tomorrow. Yes it’s cute, yes it’s basic retail politics, and yes there are questions to be asked about National’s plan — not the least of which is how much money it might end up pouring into any gondola project which may or may not get off the ground in Queenstown. But the point remains that National did its homework and turned up with something to show to the class. Which was certainly more than Labour leader Chris Hipkins did. I actually missed the start of the PM’s stand up because I was in the conference hall listening to Hipkins’ address and waiting — in vain — for him to actually say the words ``South Island’’ at some point. His speech — a slightly localised reheating of his standard ``National bad, Labour good’’ address — was fair enough as far as it went, but in terms of actual substance it barely made it over Cook Strait. His stand-up also suffered in comparison to Luxon’s as well. While the redoubtable Megan Woods was there, other Labour southern MPs such as Rachel Boyack, Damien O’Connor, Rachel Brooking and Ingrid Leary were conspicuously not. The massed ranks of National’s southern MPs — almost all of whom had made it — was quite the contrast. As for the other parties, they struggled to make an impact but fair play to the Greens and Act New Zealand for sending their leaders and to them both for making substantive contributions. Opportunity sent its leader too, and while a bit shakey in places she did not look entirely out of place — and the room was watching her intently to see how she stacked up. New Zealand First, by contrast, did not send their leader — he is overseas — but did the next best thing, as Mark Patterson was keen to point out, by sending an actual South Islander. True to form, Mr Patterson was in there red bands and all advocating for as many southern issues as he could — up to and including the Mosgiel bypass. Whether any of this amounts to anything more substantial than hot air and good catering remains to be seen. But the South Island cannot say that it did have a chance to make its pitch in election year. And I now have a piece of Ashburton to gaze fondly on whenever I drive through. Otago Daily Times political editor Mike Houlahan writes the Southern Say column for the O
