My Life Story – Stew Burns. The money man

He managed the purse strings for the Queenstown Lakes District Council for nearly 30 years, overseeing billions of dollars’ worth of expenditure in one of the fastest growing districts in the country.

It was all a far cry from what young British migrant Stew Burns had envisaged when he arrived in Tauranga after travelling from England on a ship with his family, aged12.

Stew’s parents sold their small business outside London and emigrated to New Zealand in 1973 for a better life - a difficult move, leaving family behind. “I had visions of riding a horse along the beach and I knew about the All Blacks,” Stew grins.

A newbie in the third form at Tauranga Boys’ College, tall, skinny British Stew says he got “a hard time from the Māori boys on the school bus” but fitted in fine. “I was right into sports, eventually making First 11 Cricket and Football. I have only good memories.”

After completing an English and History degree Stew began teaching in Levin but a serious car accident the first year left him several months’ out of action recovering from a bad concussion. “I’d met friends at The Clash concert in Wellington and fell asleep and hit a tree while driving back by myself,” he says. “My seatbelt snapped, and I went through the windscreen.”

A season at the nearby freezing works was “a real eye opener”, providing excellent life education. “I learned about being part of the workforce, how to interact with staff and how poor the engagement was then between staff and management,” he says. “The workers just weren’t respected as people the way I thought they should be.”

He then scored a job as head of administration for Tauranga City Council’s building department and played representative cricket in Tauranga, even playing some games for Bay of Plenty between 1985 and 1988. “That was my big passion. I was right into it.” He’d also played Central League Football in Levin.

Before long he’d scored the assistant accountant’s role at the council, working full-time and beginning what would be eight to 10 years part-time study, completing a business degree and his chartered accountancy papers. By now married to wife of 31 years Donna and a father of two, plus stepdad to three more, it was quite a “tag team balancing act”.

 

In 1996 Stew scored a job as accountant for the Queenstown Lakes District Council. “We jumped in our Toyota Townace with three kids and headed south. We knew nobody here.” They got involved in the community, Stew the obvious pick for treasurer of the St Joseph’s School board.

It was a colourful introduction with Warren Cooper as mayor and Keith Grantham as council chief executive. “I was exposed to a much wider range of issues. Warren would wander around the Ansett House offices whistling, stopping to ask what we were working on. He was unconventional, but he always had the best interests of Queenstown at heart.”

Stew’s real initiation came, knees knocking, on the 100m-high Pipeline Bungy platform after winning a staff raffle. “They all came to watch. There was quite a bit of peer pressure,” he grins. “I have my suspicions that raffle was rigged.”

The Cooper-led council then decided to contract out its regulatory services to CivicCorp to save money. “No other NZ council had done it, so we were navigating new territory. There was a lot of analysis to work through and I was heavily involved.”

In the early 2000s Stew became finance manager and the council successfully tendered for the old Wakatipu Working Men’s Club building in Gorge Road, transformed into its offices, by now just 25 administrative staff remaining. There’d been a major restructuring with some job losses, many transferring to CivicCorp. “It was a brave, bold move by the council, attracting a lot of interest from around NZ.” The 2007 council brought those functions back in-house as Lakes Environmental, a council-controlled organisation.

Local cricketing legend Joe O’Connell soon had Stew on the cricket pitch playing a St Joseph’s Invitational against Greg Turner’s team at the Rec Ground. Stew then got right amongst the Millbrook Cricket Club, a social cricket club for over 40s. The team toured the UK, Hawaii, Sri Lanka and Australia, Stew on the organising committee for the big Golden Oldies tournament in 2008 which attracted 60 teams to Queenstown, Invercargill and Central Otago.

 

Stew’s served on the project teams for many local projects, including the Queenstown and Wanaka aquatic centres, Wanaka Recreation and Lake Wanaka centres and Arrowtown community building.

Stew’s served under five different mayors and CEOs, climbing to chief financial officer - general manager assurance, finance and risk.

He’ll miss the people and the role, but “it’s time for someone else”.

The Burns have built a home in Papamoa, Tauranga, where they’ll be closer to ageing family and grandchildren, but Stew says Queenstown will always be dear to their hearts.