The capital has plenty to be proud of
Museum – whare tongarewa (far-rare tore-ngar-rare-wah)
WELLINGTON celebrates its 150th birthday this weekend, and it has a lot to be proud of. The best of those years have been the last 30 or so. In that time, Wellington has transformed itself from a drab city into a genuinely vibrant one. No town in New Zealand has undergone such a metamorphosis.
A generation ago nobody would have called Wellington the coolest little capital in the world. Nobody would have dared to use a slogan like Absolutely Positively Wellington. Wellington was a byword for bureaucracy and stodge, a bleak and windswept accident.
The new slogans, unlike most PR labels, reflect a genuine change. A generation ago the waterfront was a mess. It has been rebuilt and is now one of the glories of the city. Courtenay Place was a wilderness of secondhand shops; now it is a busy entertainment centre that thrives late into the night. A real stadium replaced the decaying mess of Athletic Park. Te Papa, a world-class museum, attracts huge crowds throughout the year.
The cafe society is now a reality in this city; we have more restaurants per head than New York. Its reputation as the cultural capital has only strengthened. This is not just because of Sir Peter Jackson and Wellywood; creative and high industries are an important part of the local economy. These new trends build on the strengths of old and splendid institutions: the symphony orchestra, the ballet, our vibrant theatres.
We’re not saying Wellington is paradise. It has serious challenges. It continues to lose businesses to Auckland. Economic growth here is unspectacular. The city has always had a terrible climate: the wind is an abiding curse. Let’s admit the capital was put in the wrong place. Picton or Nelson would have made much sunnier and more pleasant cities. The danger of a massive and lethal earthquake here remains undeniable.
The upside is that wild Wellington demands a certain energy and determination from its people. Poet Lauris Edmond’s lines, engraved on stone on the waterfront, are maybe too familiar, but they still contain an important truth: ‘‘You have to do and be, not simply watch or even describe. / This is the city of action, the world headquarters of the verb.’’
The physical transformation of Wellington is obvious and has helped make it a popular visitors’ destination instead of a kind of tourism joke. But the psychological transformation has also been huge. Wellington no longer thinks of itself as dull and grey. It discovered an energy and a creativity just beneath its surface.
The end of nine years of oppressive and socially reactionary Muldoonism in 1984 had a similar effect in many other parts of New Zealand. The brutal little man who had dammed up social and generational change in so many areas of our society finally departed – and New Zealand got a new lease of life. That remains so even when we acknowledge the serious costs of Labour’s freemarket revolution.
In Wellington, always an intimate city where you could walk easily anywhere in the downtown area, the explosion had the most dramatic effect – the bomb went off in a small space. And we are still reaping the benefits.