A standout in Southland

Image: Wayne Scott with the award.

Wow. Take a bow Southland, conference organisers and our industry – for having nearly 800 tickets sold to QuarryNZ in Invercargill.

That almost matches last year’s record tally in Hamilton. It proves that circulating our conference around those northern and southern centres with the capacity to host our growing numbers is a strategy that is paying off.  

From our well-attended Aggregate and Quarry Association Annual General Meeting through to the Friday night awards dinner, the conference at ILT Stadium Southland was a standout success.

A later-than-usual conference means detailed reports await our next edition of Aggregate News, but some highlights included lots of really useful technical sessions. AQA Tech Adviser Mike Chilton’s presentation led on the new M04 and M03 specs. In reviewing 20 quarries to test compliance in producing M04 Class 1, only three made the grade, with more to come in the pipeline. Clearly, we as an industry still have work to do; so do the councils which keep over-specifying materials for work that doesn’t require it. 

There was a big turnout for the Women in Quarrying session and later the Institute of Quarrying Australia’s inspirational video on its “That’s Solid” promotional campaign in Australia, which featured two women and two men. Messages in that for us all.

There was another good message on our opening night. Invercargill’s Mayor Tom Campbell backed our industry and its importance.

Perhaps the most confronting presentation came from SLR Consulting’s Charlene Donald. She outlined how half of working New Zealand adults have low literacy or numeracy or both. Given most office workers probably couldn’t do their jobs without such basic skills, it’s likely our industry may have even higher numbers. Clearly, we face a lot of challenges, not least in health and safety, which we need to address. 

Land Information Minister Mike Butterick told us the Government is looking at a uniform permitted activity status for quarry resource consents and that the AQA’s National Environment Standard for Quarrying was being evaluated by officials. Later, Resources Minister Shane Jones, in another tub-thumping address, said quarrying would have such a document emerging from the RMA reforms.

These results for our sector are in a large part due to the advocacy of Wayne Scott. This was his last QuarryNZ as our Chief Executive. While he still has some months to go in that role while we try to find a suitable replacement, I used our AGM to thank him for his professionalism, dedication and unflappable manner as our CEO.

We awarded Wayne an AQA Life Membership and also similarly recognised the contribution of two of our former AQA Board members, Tony Hunter and Peter Walsh, who both retired last year.  

As usual there were a host of other awards given out at the conference’s concluding night to many worthy recipients. Our AQA-managed MIMICO Environment and Community Award winner went to KB Quarries for creating an enclosure at their Yaldhurst site for themselves and other Canterbury quarries to rehouse lizards. 

We will have fuller coverage of QuarryNZ 2026 in the next Aggregate News but in the interim, thanks to our sponsors, trade exhibitors, delegates and partners on a great conference. Organisers of next year’s conference in Wellington have a lot to match – or better.

Jayden Ellis

Chair, AQA.   AQA