Foster build
Representatives of the University of Waikato, Foster Construction, Chow Hill and Colliers outside the site for the new medical school building. Back row L – R: Leonard Gardner – Director at Foster Construction; Jonathan Albery – Project Director at Colliers; Jim Mercer – Chief Operating Officer, Professor Neil Quigley – Vice-Chancellor and Professor Jo Lane – Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Division of Health at the University of Waikato; Sam Thomas – Senior Principal and Registered Architect and Jane Hill – Senior Principal and Registered Architect from Chow Hill; Harley Raihe – Cultural Advisor at Foster Construction Front row L – R: Professor David McCormack – Interim Dean of Medicine at the University of Waikato; Adam Findlay – GM Construction (Waikato), James Peers – Quantity Surveyor, Blanton Benjamin – Project Manager and Warren Luxton – CEO at Foster Construction. Photo: Stephen Barker
Foster Construction (Fosters) has been appointed to lead construction of Waikato University’s four-storey teaching and learning Medical School building, which has been designed by architects Chow Hill. The build will employ an estimated 200 people across the Fosters team and other local subcontractors, consultants and suppliers during its two years under construction.
Site confirmed
Inside the old board room at Te Rapa Racecourse, racing club chair Bruce Harvey, left, and chief executive Andrew Castles have planned the purchase for months. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Waikato Thoroughbred Racing has secured a conditional deal to buy 150 hectares in Tamahere, marking the first major step toward relocating and modernising the region’s thoroughbred racing operations. The “super club,” – a 2023 merger of Waikato Racing, Cambridge Jockey and Waipā Racing clubs, has chosen a dairy farm site bordering the Waikato Expressway with Pencarrow and Duncan roads on either side.
Pitts in charge
Warwick Pitts and Sheree Ryan
Warwick Pitts has been appointed the new chief executive at Wintec and a governance board, chaired by Sheree Ryan, confirmed for the organisation which is now an independent entity as part of the disestablishment of Te Pūkenga. The other board members are Sarah Morton-Johnson, Ken Williamson and Edgar Wilson.
54, and counting
Maree McRobbie now works in the online ordering area for Hamilton Woolworths. Maree has worked for Woolworths for nearly 51 years and been in the supermarket industry for 54 years.
Woolworths Anglesea Street team member Maree McRobbie, 70, has no plans to retire after working for the supermarket’s various companies since 1972. She first started on the checkouts at SuperValue in Bridge Street which then became Woolworths, Big Fresh, Countdown and back to Woolworths. She currently works as an online supervisor four days a week and is one of four in New Zealand who have worked for more than 50 years for the company.
Maree McRobbie, then assistant market director at Big Fresh, now works in the online ordering area for Hamilton Woolworths.
Ear ear
Tolbec’s Jade Cumpstone, left, and Chelsea Aylett. Photo: Stephen Barker
Tolbecs Ear Centre Limited, with clinics in Hamilton East and Rototuna, has been named New Zealand’s Most Trusted Business of 2025. A privately owned, nurse-led ear clinic, Tolbecs provides safe, comfortable, and professional care to support people with their ears and hearing. The Most Trusted Business Awards celebrate hardworking, honest, and trustworthy businesses across New Zealand.
See: Most trusted
Care comes first
Tamahere Country Club
The first stage of Tamahere Country Club’s 6000 square metre Care Centre – for dementia and hospital level care – has opened and features innovative design and a unique approach to care. It features a 20-bed memory care neighbourhood, and 14 dual-purpose rest home/hospital beds. When the facility is completed next year, there will be 80 care suites to complement the village’s 250 standalone villas.
Health boost
Braemar Charitable Trust has received multi-year funding from the Glenice and John Gallagher Foundation, worth $100,000 each year for three years, to enable it to pilot and scale innovative health initiatives to address areas of significant need, including patients on waiting lists who need echocardiograms (ECGs) and colonoscopies, and children needing specialist paediatric dental surgery.
A significant donation from the Glenice and John Gallagher Foundation will help Braemar Charitable Trust address several areas of unmet health needs in the Waikato region. The $100,000 each year for three years to enable it to pilot and scale innovative initiatives to address areas of significant need including patients on waiting lists who need echocardiograms and colonoscopies, and children needing specialist paediatric dental surgery.
Better air
Winter 2025 marked a turning point for air quality in Tokoroa, thanks to a community-focused education campaign led by Waikato Regional Council. The initiative, which ran in Tokoroa and Te Kūiti, aimed to reduce harmful emissions from home heating by promoting better wood-burning practices.
Chook fame
Home of Free Range Chicken” . Depicting Waikato’s verdant farms where Waitoa is based, the spot features a pair of farmers pondering, with provincial understatement, how little we know about the provenance of our poultry.
Waitoa has launched a major new campaign and on-pack QR technology that gives New Zealanders the ability to trace their free range chicken back to the Waikato farms where it was raised. Depicting Waikato’s verdant farms where Waitoa is based, the campaign features a pair of farmers pondering, with provincial understatement, how little we know about our poultry.
Austin elected
Graeme Austin
Graeme Austin has been elected New Zealand National Fieldays Society president ahead of nominated board member Harmen Heesen. Austin, who has served on the board since 2019, replaces Jenni Vernon. Sam Williams has joined the board with Austin, Tim Hale, Vernon, Jo Finer, Clinton Gulliver, Heesen and Lynette Pearks.
Decade up
Warwick Pitts hits gong alongside Chen Hairong VP
Wintec and Jinhua University of Vocational Technology in China have celebrated their 10th anniversary as a joint institution. The partnership has created opportunities for thousands of students to access international learning pathways, preparing them for global careers. Wintec co-delivers a range of undergraduate programmes in topics including engineering, design, and information technology to offshore students at Jinhua University.
Jinhua 2025 Study Tour to Wintec
Paul Conder
Finance chief
Waikato District Council’s new chief financial officer is Paul Conder, a chartered accountant with financial management experience across local and central government organisations, and education, health and energy sectors.
He has been acting chief financial officer at the Waikato District Council for the last three months.
Springs warning
Blue Spring / Te Waihou Walkway – The walkway is 4.7km long and takes 1 1/2 hours one way or three hours for the full loop. It is generally easy walking through privately owned farmland. There are a couple of short steep sections. The Blue Spring itself is located towards the Leslie Road end.
New Zealand Transport Agency say some people accessing one of Waikato’s hidden gems – the Blue Springs and Te Waihou Walkway near Putāruru – are parking on the state highway when there is allocated parking available which South Waikato District Council has recently upgraded.
Power century
Wairere Power Station marks 100 years of hydropower and community connection
Wairere Power Station marked 100 years of hydropower and community connection last month with a private event attended by iwi, hapū, community leaders, friends, and staff past and present. The day also recognised the strong environmental partnership between King Country Energy and iwi, particularly in the protection of the elver migration along the Mōkau River.
Global deal
From left to right: Associate Minister of Defence Chris Penk; Gary Bancroft, Head of Supply Chain at Babcock International; Lance Bauerfeind, Head of training and Simulation at Company-X; and Sir Nick Hine, CEO Marine at Babcock International. They are pictured signing the agreement between global defence company Babcock International and Hamilton based tech firm Company-X at the Indo Pacific International Maritime Exposition in Sydney.
New Zealand-made virtual reality training technology is set to reach defence forces around the world, thanks to a new agreement between global defence company Babcock International and Hamilton-based tech firm Company-X. The partnership, announced at the Indo Pacific International Maritime Exposition in Sydney, marks a major step for the Kiwi firm behind simulation software already used by the Royal New Zealand Navy.
Sales raised
Waikato is one of just three regions recording increases in the number of property sales year-on-year, the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) advises. National sales declined 5.7 per cent, but Waikato bucked the trend (slightly), up 2.9 per cent – Nelson was also up, by 25.8 per cent followed by Northland, 12 per cent. However, the key takeaway from REINZ November Property Report is that confidence and median prices are on the rise across most of the country.
Tamahere in mix
The leafy green suburbs of Auckland are the most expensive in the country, but one Waikato suburb isn’t far off the mark. According to Cotality’s annual Best of the Best Report, Tamahere weighed in at $1.9million, slightly below the only other non-Auckland suburb to crack the top 10, Arrowtown ($2million).
Costly vandals
• Tamahere Reserve, where fencing around a stormwater asset has been repeatedly vandalised, including damage to temporary repairs between October and December.
Vandalism across Waikato District Council assets cost ratepayers over $120,000 between January and November last year, with further costs expected as repairs continue this year. Beyond the financial impact, vandalism creates ongoing safety risks and reduces access to public facilities. A stormwater asset in Tamahere is among those repeatedly targeted by vandals.
Rob Dol
Dol to airport
Hamilton Airport has seconded well-known Waikato-based project director Rob Dol to its senior team for two years.
He moves from his current role as project director at Colliers Project Leaders to become the airport’s group general manager – Property and Infrastructure.
Natzke steps up
Cambridge Chamber of Commerce AGM – Back row, from left Cristal Montgomery, Janine Peters, Aroha Croft, Joanne Jogia, Kelly Bouzaid; front row: Monique Medley-Rush, David Natzke, Jim Goddin. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
The Cambridge Business Chamber has reported it ended the year 440 members strong, firmly positioned to champion local business into the future. Both chief executive Kelly Bouzaid and acting chair David Natzke delivered reports to the annual meeting highlighting a year of growth, advocacy, and consolidation. Natzke was appointed chair following a special meeting with Monique Medley Rush the deputy chair and Janine Peters continuing as treasurer.
Depot anniversary
Attendees gathering out front at the opening of the building – 3 December 2010.
Fifteen years ago, Waipā Networks was settling into its newly built depot on Harrison Drive in Te Awamutu, marking the end of one era and the beginning of another. The move into a purpose-built facility brought the electricity distribution business’s operations together under one modern roof, creating the space and laying the foundations for the technological and service improvements that would define the decade to come.
An aerial view of the building in 2022.
A partnership
Wintec and Te Nehenehenui representatives following the signing of the relationship commitment at Te Kōpū Mānia o Kirikiriroa marae, Wintec City Campus.
The success and wellbeing of Maniapoto ākonga (students) and their whānau, hapū, and iwi is the foundation of a newly formalised partnership between Wintec and Te Nehenehenui, the post-settlement governance entity for Maniapoto. Education plays an important role in supporting thriving communities, said Warwick Pitts, Wintec Operations Lead and now chief executive. The partnership with Maniapoto reflected their shared goal of supporting ākonga to succeed.
Sustainability
The New Zealand National Fieldays Society has achieved a major sustainability milestone, verified by Instep (a New Zealand-based sustainability consultancy) under ISO 20121 and ISO 14064 standards. Fieldays, held at Mystery Creek Events Centre last year reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 81 percent compared to its 2013 base year, reaching the society’s original 2030 target five years early. The event hosted 110,000 visitors and 1100 exhibitors.
Wintec hub
Leading Wintec researchers and keynote speakers, Dr Peter Maulder, pictured, and Dr Matthew Bannister, were a key drawcard for those who attended the two-day event. A dynamic Māori research leader, Peter (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Pāhauwera) is Kaihautū Rangahau and Research Office Senior Strategist at Wintec.
Wintec was a hub for vocational research and innovation last month, hosting the 2025 North Island Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITP) Rangahau and Research Symposium. Designed to highlight the depth and diversity of research happening within Aotearoa New Zealand’s vocational education sector, the event welcomed researchers, educators, innovators, and community leaders from across the country.
Speed dating
A Government and industry initiative piloted in the Waikato, described by employers as “recruitment speed dating,” aims to cut the costs of hiring staff for hundreds of businesses around the country after delivering one of the highest completion and employment rates seen in the manufacturing sector. Industry experts say the programme is also helping to break down long-standing stereotypes about New Zealand’s productive sectors by giving learners firsthand exposure to modern, technology-driven workplaces that challenge outdated assumptions about manufacturing.
Zespri red
Zespri RubyRed™ Red 80 Kiwifruit
Kiwifruit companies in liquidation
Financial restructuring is underway at five Te Puke kiwifruit companies linked to Gurwinder Singh Bains. The companies have been placed in court‑appointed liquidation, with PwC investigating their financial position.
PwC directors Wendy Somerville and Malcolm Hollis are leading the process. The companies are Bains Fruit Productions, Bains Hort Group, Bains Farms, Bains Bros and GDP Orchards.
Zespri has suspended Bains Hort Group’s contract to supply fruit. Gurwinder Singh Bains of Te Puke is listed as sole shareholder and director of the group and is associated with the other companies.
PwC said it is securing assets and assessing liabilities, with a first report due to the Registrar of Companies this month. Somerville confirmed the liquidators are in talks with company representatives and the immediate focus is on orchard operations. Receivership differs from liquidation as it is typically an appointment by a lender holding a security agreement and applies only to secured assets.
PwC is still determining the number of unsecured creditors. Details will be disclosed in this month’s filing.
Kiwifruit
