Troubled waters

The issue of co-governance is at a difficult stage but a conversation will have to be held at a national level, says engineering fellow Dr Sina Cotter Tait MInstD.

Cotter Tait, a champion for diversity, Pacific peoples and community projects, sits on a number of boards involved in infrastructure, and one in particular that engages with Māori and the contentious resource of water.

“I suppose we’re in that really difficult stage where people are getting their misunderstandings and fears out of the way,” the civil engineer says. “Co-governance is a conversation we have to have at a national level.

“I’m on the board of an irrigation company and co-governance is a topic we have to talk about. None of us is Māori. I certainly don’t have an authority in engaging with iwi, but moving our company in a [right] direction, we need to do that. I can see a real opportunity – and a risk as well – for boards that have the kind of understanding and bigger world view around these co- governance conversations.”

Cotter Tait says for organisations dealing with infrastructure involving water it is very much at the forefront because of the government’s Three Waters Reform programme.

“It is a tricky space that we’re going to have to navigate. Legislative change is always difficult and understanding what the impact is going to be and how it might change your operation and reporting obligations. That’s one aspect of it.

“For an organisation to fully understand co-governance, the philosophy of it and what it means and what it doesn’t mean, that’s a learning journey for a lot of boards.”

Cotter Tait, who was elected a Fellow of Engineering New Zealand – Te Ao Rangahau in 2022, says there is a lack of resources and ways to upskill.

“The last thing we want is for everyone to hit the local marae and ask to be taught this stuff because there just isn’t the capacity in Māoridom to support organisations to suddenly come up to speed with all things Māori.

“For water engineering in particular, most of us aren’t Māori. So we have to come up to speed with what the water reforms will mean for our work. There’s a huge need there for organisations and directors to be mindful of.”

This means even more responsibility for CEOs, who are busy trying to manage risk, cyber security and changing social values, along with their normal duties.

“Boards have to remember we are asking a lot of our CEOs now. Cultural competence is really a big ask for a lot of our CEOs and our executive leaders. It’s something I’ve observed and I’m not quite sure what the answer is, but I’m quite sensitive to the fact that some of this change is going take a lot of time. As a director we have to have some patience and support our executives as we all learn together.”

Born in Christchurch, Cotter Tait spent the first 10 years of her life growing up in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, after her father, also an engineer, left New Zealand to find work. “My mum is from Samoa, which is where my Pacific heritage comes from. My father’s family actually goes back lots of generations here in Ōtautahi, Christchurch.”

Torn between a career in law and engineering, Cotter Tait opted for the latter because she was passionate about water. “But I really enjoyed the contract management side of things, which probably wasn’t that surprising since I had considered law.”

She values her engineering degree highly, saying it is incredibly valuable because it teaches you discipline around systematic thinking and critical thinking that is “incredibly useful” in the boardroom.

By the time she finished university she was married to John (also an engineer) and had a two-year-old child. Satisfying her ambition, she did an MBA at Canterbury University, helping her define her strengths.

“And that’s the first time I heard about this thing called governance, through the MBA. I jumped on my kids’ school board, which was a real experience in lots of ways, good and bad. I was then incredibly fortunate to be appointed onto the Christchurch City Holdings’ intern director scheme, placing me on a board for two years as an intern. I learned a phenomenal amount.”

Now Cotter Tait is in a happy space of combining her technical understanding– infrastructure – with her values around community, along with her roles in a number of engineering boards.

Most recently she joined the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust, which provides social housing in Christchurch. She has also joined the board of a civil construction company and an irrigation company, both in Oamaru.

As a leader in her field, Cotter Tait says the number of women in engineering – either civil, mechanical or electrical – has room for improvement. And even more so for Pasifika and Māori.

New Zealand has a membership of 22,000 professional engineers – and fewer than 6 per cent are Māori and/or Pacific. “We’re certainly very under-represented,” says Cotter Tait. “And there are so few of us who are chartered.

“It’s a complex issue. It goes right back to the number of Māori and Pacific coming into university, and affected by the number of students doing the hard physics and calculus subjects in high school.

“There’s this pipeline, which I’m interested in from a governance point of view. I’ve sat on school boards but I’m also involved in industry advisory groups at university. When you are looking at these different points along the chain, you can see it’s a systemic issue.

“There’s lots of things that need addressing. The statistics I’m seeing in the education sector at the moment, I don’t see that changing anytime in the next decade. I see that as a lost opportunity because our society is changing.”

Cotter Tait says she sees a real value proposition for boards to have Māori and Pacific whakapapa in the boardroom, “because there’s this kind of cultural grab of issues that society is trying to deal with”.

As a minority in the engineering world, it was an environment where she did not feel comfortable – and that has transferred to boardrooms.

“I don’t necessarily feel like I share the same background as other people in lots of ways. I’m a curious, nosy person who is keen to understand things. I’m also keen to see if I can help. I seem to have this tendency to gravitate towards spaces where there aren’t many people who ‘look’ like me.”

Cotter Tait, who has just joined the IoD’s Pacific Advisory Group, says cyber security is an issue that concerns her, along with climate change.

“Every board I’m on is struggling with climate change and what it means for us, how effective we can be and what kind of urgency we need to place on it. But the one that really has me worried is around cyber security. It’s a huge opportunity with some of these new tools but we seem to lack the regulatory framework. We’re also exposing ourselves potentially to a whole lot of risks we don’t fully understand. How do we protect ourselves but move forward at the same time? It is really challenging,” she says.

“Some of the regulations coming out of Australia are quite alarming – the financial penalties you could face if you don’t have the right measures in place are huge. And potentially quite frightening. To maintain a basic level of cyber security, there is probably a lot more than people realise.”

The ability of boards to be agile points to the massively broad and complex nature of governance for most organisations, she says, and being able to shift from thinking about internal issues to strategic issues – all in the same four-hour meeting. “That’s an agility in itself.”

But she says it is important to be able to balance the long term and the short term, important versus urgent, and that sometimes a 100-year view is necessary, citing the irrigation board she sits on.

Cotter Tait says you cannot be an authority on everything and board meetings are a process of continuous learning. “Sometimes I learn a lot more than I wanted, but in a changing world you have to be open to changing your position or mind.”

Her motivation is delivering community impact and she is not interested in organisations that exist purely for profit.

“The construction company I’m involved in is 100 per cent-owned by Waitaki District Council so all the profits and dividends go back into the local economy. The Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust delivers social housing and is effectively not for profit. If you’re contributing to that important work, even in a tiny way, it is really cool and incredibly rewarding.

“It’s making people’s lives better. That’s what we’re here to do.”