COVID-19 governance snapshot

19 May 2020

Philip Robinson

Marlborough Lines Limited - Director
Nelson Electricity Limited - Director
Robinson Construction Limited - Managing Director

In what role have you spent the majority of your time over the last few weeks?

We employ 80 people in our group of construction companies and to be honest, I’ve been operating mostly at a management level during the last six weeks. On the bigger boards, with the electricity lines companies, we’ve been having weekly meetings on Zoom.

What’s your management time being spent on?

There’s been a lot of work at a management level to prepare for Level two and beyond. It certainly hasn’t been a simple flicking of the switch and starting up again. At Level 3, once we got the initial protocols in place with contact tracing, PPE and the like, we were able to function fairly normally although it was slower and more awkward than usual. Level two is slightly better and less onerous with better access to suppliers and the like.

What’s been the major governance focus during this time?

Making sure our staff and the public are safe.

What good has come out of this situation?

All the precautions taken by our companies have worked more than satisfactorily. Everyone has been relatively pleased that we can continue working remotely from each other when that’s required, although that’s obviously harder for the teams that we have working outdoors.

What kind of impact do you expect to see COVID-19 have on the construction and electricity sectors?

There has been a slight reduction in electricity as the management teams predicted and they’re continuing to forecast future projections, but seem to be within expectations.

The construction companies have a fairly full card for the next 6 to 8 months so I’m relatively confident that we will get through this not too scathed. We’ve been relatively well looked after in this region with the vintage being able to be harvested. But there’s certainly pain to be had in some industries and that concerns me.

The government appears to have a strong stimulus package for construction in the budget which is good. The wage subsidies were a welcome move – it would have been hard to have lasted this long without them.

How long do you think it’s going to take NZ to recover from COVID?

I am worried about Hospitality and Tourism as they are severely affected, but domestically I hope NZ is up and running in next 3 to 6 months but it won't be at previous levels until we can get the international boarders open. The biggest issue that we have is how do we re-integrate with the rest of the world.

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