New Zealand rejected Michelle Excell. Both her parents were Kiwi but because she was born in Australia, a law change when she was aged 18 meant she could no longer be a NZ citizen. So, she went and made her name as a tech entrepreneur in America.
As an immersive technology consultant, she’s worked with brands and ad agencies to help them develop well-known products and campaigns, like Taco Bell’s famous metaverse wedding, and luxury car-maker Acura’s experiment in which celebs drove real cars blind, wearing virtual reality goggles and helmet. “It was,” she says, “completely bonkers!” Now, aged 42, New Zealand has welcomed her back. In particular, one small town.
She and her husband couldn’t buy a family home in overpriced Oakland, California. “It’s very tough in the Bay Area. The rat race is real, yeah.
And I’m not getting any younger.” So they made the unlikely move to the riverside town of Whanganui and in November last year, bought a three-bedroom leasehold property for $323,000. They love the community, its arts, its nightlife.
“We heard rumours of a lot of secretive underground gigs. I don’t think I want to give away anything more!” “It could not have been a warmer welcome into Whanganui. Unbelievable, because people are amazed and so happy that so many people are moving here.
“It feels that it’s the only time in my life I’ve ever moved anywhere where it’s on the up. Every other time I’ve moved, they say ‘oh, you just missed the good music scene San Francisco’. Or ‘oh, you just missed the crazy times in the agency scene in Melbourne, we no longer snort cocaine off the boardroom table’.
I kind of missed every era! “Now, we’ve moved to a place that just 100 percent feels like it’s on the up and up.” They’re at the vanguard of what mayor Andrew Tripe plans to be a regeneration of the town driven by the first so-called “city deal” with the Government. Next week, the Prime Minister is expected to announce the city deal framework to the big annual Local Government NZ gathering of mayors, chairs and councillors, in Wellington.
City deals, also known as regional deals or place-based agreements, are one of the few things that the coalition Government, its Labour opposition, and local councils all agree on. What are they? According to last year’s Future for Local Government Review (whose recommendations have otherwise been scrapped by minister Simeon Brown), place-based agreements are “bespoke packages of funding and decision-making powers negotiated between central and local government and other local bodies as part of the exercise of kāwanatanga”. They are designed to drive long-term, large-scale wellbeing improvements at place in a way that shines light on local priorities.
If this sounds to you like a nice new brand for the well-trodden practice of central and local government negotiating how to finance their regional priorities, you’re not entirely wrong. As for Michelle Excel? She’s now reclaimed her New Zealand citizenship..
