The transport industry has been an attentive audience for leading New Zealand economist Cam Bagrie on multiple occasions, and always appreciative of his blunt economic assessments and overview of local and world issues.

Now Bagrie is set to play a lead role in the direction of Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand following his appointment as an Independent Director and Chair. The first meeting of the newly elected Board held in late-October confirmed Bagrie’s new position as swell as key plans for 2025.

Bagrie is currently an Independent Chair of the governance committee of the NZ Apple and Pear Inc. Board, and he is also a Board member of Life Education Trust

Transporting NZ says Bagrie will bring additional skills, experience and knowledge to the Board and the association’s leadership.

Bagrie says part of the job involves being a change agent if that is required, and try and move things along.

“Change is everywhere and it’s exponential.  Businesses need to innovate, adopt and adapt,” he says.

 “We need to create an environment where businesses can prosper and provide the economic base for our wellbeing.”

He points to productivity growth as one of the big issues facing not just the transport sector, but the country as a whole. Where productivity growth used to be around 1.3% per year on average, now it’s only 0.2%.

 “New Zealand is not getting efficiency gains every year, our living standards are basically just standing still,” Bagrie says.

 “NZ doesn’t get richer selling more expensive houses to each other.”

He says he would like to see what the industry can do to safely boost productivity, and deal with some of the things that are making it hard to run operations in New Zealand.

 “You only have to look at the Plague of Cones on our roading network and the length of time it takes to get things done.

 “Those are huge inhibitors for productivity growth. The Roads of National Significance programme is a step in the right direction.”

Another important move sees Dom Kalasih formally appointed as Chief Executive Officer – a position he has held in an interim role for 18 months.

It’s effectively a change of wording only, dropping `Interim’ from the title.

“I don’t expect you to notice any changes operationally,” Dom says.

Outlining the focus for coming year, Dom says; “The next 12 months are exciting. I see the efficacy of sector groups really taking off; further relationships with Associate Members (suppliers) being formed; us continuing to improve engagement across the membership; us holding more quality events; and us continuing to lead on the high-level policy advocacy front.

“All these will ensure we provide value to members. I also envisage further changes to business systems and processes (e.g payroll, CRM, documentation management) which will improve resilience and integrity of us functioning as an organisation.”

A further Board decision confirms plans for Transporting New Zealand’s main events in 2025.

Following the success of the South and North Island Seminars held this year, the Board has agreed a similar format over the 2025 calendar year with events planned for Twizel during June and for the central North Island, likely in September. A national event in Wellington in 2026 will coincide with Election Year.