Pauline is a highly skilled, competent Chartered Accountant.  She recently retired as a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, a leading international chartered accountancy firm.

NPDC is a multi-milliion dollar, complex organisation.  The skills required to efficiently and effectively lead such an organisation are those same skills that Pauline has honed over the past 21 years.  Her expertise is in strategic and business planning, understanding financial information and prudent financial management.

She is able to empathise and understand the needs of the community and, what we expect from our Council for services, and within the cultural and social environment.  She understands that together we want to achieve maximum benefit at minimum cost coupled with a desire to live in a district that is one of the best places to live, work, play and raise our families.

Pauline is disciplined, hardworking and would be totally committed to us as Mayor.

 

 

Top 5 Issues

1. Pride in our District - My Vision for our District is that we continue to be vibrant, dynamic, forward thinking district that we can all be proud of. A community that will attract and retain people. That our District continues to be the best place for us to live, to work and to play.
2. Economic Growth - we need businesses, we need more jobs because this allows the fixed costs to be spread amongst more people - a positive impact on rates - and it means jobs for our children and grandchildren.
3. Population Growth - we need to ensure that the population of Taranaki is at least 2.5% of the total population of New Zealand to maintain our share of Government funding for health, education and infrastructure. This is important because we do have an increasing aging population.
4. Progress with restraint - we need to continue to progress as a District in a fiscally responsible way. I cannot promise to hold rate increases below the CPI, but I can promise that as your Mayor the first conversation that I would be having with the CEO is that the Council must have a culture of zero tolerance of waste and inefficiencies and that a robust performance measurement plan must be introduced to ensure this outcome.
5. The Waiwahakaiho Bridge - we have all experienced frustrations with the delays and concerns with the safety issues. The NZ Transport Agency have just appointed a consultant to work out what to do including the upstream and downstream issues. They should report back with their short term and long term recommendations by Christmas. The Mayor, the Council and the Taranaki Regional Council need to keep the pressure on the NZTA to keep this at the top of their priority list.

Personal Profile

I have two adult sons, Aaron, who lives in Auckland and Zane, who lives in London,  My partner is Peter Horton.

My great, great, great grandparents, James and Jane Climo, arrived in New Plymouth on the William Bryan on 31 March, 1841.  Their daughter, Elizabeth, born on 15 November, 1841, was the first white child born in New Plymouth.  New Plymouth has been my home since 1981.  My two boys were raised here - a fantastic place for them to grow up in. 

I put myself through university, while working, as an adult student in the 1970's.  I received my Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1978.  In the same year I was awarded the NZ Institute of Chartered Accountants prize for being the top accountancy student at Otage University.  I became a Chartered Accountant in 1979. 

I retired as a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on the 30 June, 2010, after serving 21 years as a practicing chartered accountant in New Plymouth.  I was the first female managing partner of an office in PwC, a position that I held twice, for a total of 6+ years.  At the time of my retirement I was the longest serving female partner in PwC.

During my career with PwC I was fortunate to have a large mix of clients, commercial, farming, not for profit, charitable trusts, etc.  Every day was an interesting day because you never knew from one day to the next what business or technical issue a client may want to seek your assistance on.  The environment was one of trust where the clients trusted me and the team to deliver quality, timely outcomes that added value to their business at a reasonable price.  This is not too dissimiliar to the Council situation - the community is the client and the community is looking for similiar outcomes.

I have worked long hours for most of my working life.  As a result my spare time has been spent on simple pleasures - reading, movies, walking the dog, tramping, spending time with Peter and enjoying the company of friends and family.  I had started to play bridge again but this has gone into recess over the past few weeks.

I am a positive person who enjoys meeting people and conversing and laughing with them.  We are lucky to live in such a positive District where most people are very nice people and where they still have the time to stop and chat with you.

I am proud to live in the District.  We are so lucky to have such a beautiful natural environment - the mountain that we all relate to, the surf with some of the best breaks in the world, the parks, the walkways and we have a fantastic cultural and social environment.

We have achieved so much as a District to date - together we can keep achieving!