It is a great honour to present this issue to mark Contractor magazine’s golden anniversary. I wonder if the founders imagined this magazine would endure for 50 years. It’s certainly unusual for a publication to last for that long, especially in the hands of the same shareholders.
Our heartfelt thanks to the associations who joined forces five decades ago to launch The Contractor as their “official journal”. They are Civil Contractors New Zealand, the Aggregate and Quarry Association, the New Zealand Heavy Haulage Association, the Crane Association of New Zealand and Concrete New Zealand.
We now have a bimonthly magazine for the AQA and the mining sector called New Zealand Quarrying and Mining, or Q&M. However, many of our readers receive a copy of both magazines and there’s still a strong relationship between the two associations and sectors.
Thank you to our shareholders for your kind birthday wishes. Also, many thanks to the advertisers who are on board for our 50th anniversary, some of whom have been with us from the start. Your support is greatly appreciated.
It’s a testament to the tenacity of our shareholders that this magazine has endured so long. I expect it’s also a sign of the high standards the editors and other staff have strived to uphold over the years to produce an excellent and relevant magazine.
Many thanks to our board and everyone who’s worked on Contractor to keep it going through economic shocks, including a recession in 1976 when the magazine began and, most recently, a pandemic – Covid-19.
We have a packed edition for you this month, starting with a look back at the origins of the magazine and excerpts from the first edition of October 1976, on pages 8–10. Many of the issues are similar to those faced today.
Contractor has had a handful of editors and two of them, Alan Titchall and Gavin Riley, have written about their time at the magazine on pages 12–13 (Alan) and 16–17 (Gavin). I appreciate their input and support.
I was pleased to hear from Don Tilbrook, whose 50-year career in civil contracting has happened alongside Contractor magazine, so it’s fascinating to hear about his experience over that time.
Thanks also to my colleagues General Manager David Penny and Sales Consultant Charles Fairbairn, who have written about their nine and 12 years respectively at the company on page 14.
We feature the new CCNZ President on page 25; the CCNZ Wellington/Wairarapa Awards, pages 20–21; the conference dress-up party, pages 22–23; and a Connexis Civil Industry Training Award recipient on page 24.
There’s coverage of the NZ Heavy Haulage annual conference on pages 46–49 and a column on bridging the generations by Samantha Riley, Downer’s Transport and Infrastructure Contract Manager on pages 50–51.
We also cover banking, underground assets, modern slavery, drugs, South Island infrastructure, and new procurement rules and migration laws. There’s also our legal column and Classic Machines’ author Richard Campbell’s Top 10, compiled especially for our 50th.
Our project is the award-winning Central Interceptor on pages 58–66.
Thank you to our writers, whose contributions are vital, and also to our valued readers, whose support we couldn’t do without. As the first editor said, “We can’t do it by ourselves.”
Finally, my gratitude to designer Tracey Asher and our proofreader who have spent late nights and early mornings getting everything in this edition right.
Enjoy the read!
Natasha Jojoa Burling
Editorial Manager