What does your town’s slogan say about you? Tara Ward finds out. 

Nothing represents a town’s identity better than a catchy marketing slogan. Take a road trip through Aotearoa and you’ll drive past signs proclaiming things like “Ohakune, where adventures begin”, “Milton, town of opportunities” or the delicious “come and taste Te Puke”. A good slogan is a one-line literary masterpiece that sticks in your memory (like “of course you Canterbury”) while a dodgy one can tarnish a city’s reputation forever (Auckland A? Auckland, no). 

To do our bit for local tourism, we’ve narrowed down our weirdest and most wonderful town slogans from the past, present and future. Please note this is not an exhaustive list, and if you’re annoyed about the towns we missed, please take a trip to Naseby: 2000ft above worry level.

Timaru: Touch, taste, feel Timaru

Turn on the taps in Timaru and all that comes out is raunch. Who knew Timaru was such a city of hornbags? First launched in 2006, this saucy slogan captured hearts and tongues until some locals reportedly started adding “lick” to the signs. In response, Timaru replaced it with the far less provoactive “affordable, accessible… just plain awesome”. Put it on your Tinder profile, tattoo it across your heart. 

Foxton: The fox town

Somehow this slogan manages to be both a boldfaced lie and an undeniable truth. Despite having zero foxes, Foxton is still the fox of towns. Don’t Fuckton with Foxton. 

Dunedin: A pretty good plan D

Big D energy here. This slogan was aimed at New Zealanders who couldn’t travel overseas during the pandemic, because who doesn’t want to be the fourth choice of places to visit? More modest work from the city who also bought us the memorable “it’s all right here” campaign, and I dare you not to belt out the chorus of this iconic Dunedin banger. 

Featherston: If you lived here, you’d be home now

Can’t argue with the science. Five stars.

Ashburton: Whatever it takes 

This is the desperate commitment we expect from a town slogan. Ashburton made it clear they would go to any length for our approval, until the town got sick of itself and decided they’d rather do nothing than everything. They have since given up on words entirely, instead preferring a single “A”. A-mazing.  

Dannevirke: Take a liking to a Viking 

Raise your axe and let out a primal scream for the town so determined to make us like a vike that they proposed building a 10 metre high Viking statue at a cost of $180,000 (approximately nine billion dollars in today’s money). Notorious wet blanket Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand says Dannevirke’s welcome sign plays on “warlike Viking stereotypes which have little connection with the 19th century immigrants who came to clear the bush and establish farms”. Oh well, at least it rhymes. 

Hutt Valley: Right up my Hutt Valley 

Surely one of the world’s top three renowned valley phrases, alongside the curious “how green is your valley?” and the perturbing “valley of the shadow of death.” Get it up ya, New Zealand. 

Woodville: It’s all good in the Wood 

“It’s all good in the Wood” beat “Funky Junction” and “Woodville: Highway Haven” in the town’s recent vote for a new slogan. Carry on, Woodville. Carry on like the heroes you are. 

Auckland: Auckland A

Auckland is a slogan slag, having shopped its way around a variety of rebrands in recent years. There was the classic “City of Sails” in the mid 1980s, “Auckland A” in the 2000s (which encouraged Aucklanders to make their hands into an A shape while still expecting to be taken seriously by the rest of the country), “Big Little City” and “The Show Never Stops”. Frankly, it’s a crime that “Rock the Dock” never took off. 

Balclutha: Big river town

The good folk of the south have no time for complicated slogans, and simply say it like it is. There’s a big river. And there’s a town. Big River Town. 

Stokes Valley: Better than you imagine 

Applaudable optimism and positivity here. Stokes Valley wants us to know they will always exceed our expectations, regardless of whether we think their town is a bit shit or an urban paradise. Absolutely stoked.

Wairoa: The way NZ used to be

No issues here, no further correspondence will be entered into. 

Rolleston: Town of the future

This slogan was created in the 1970s when prime minister Norman Kirk dreamed up a plan to increase Rolleston’s population from 1,000 to an extremely chill 80,000. In a strange turn of events, we are now living in the future, which makes Rolleston the psychic slogan equivalent of Sue Nicholson. 

Hamilton: More than you expect

Everyone loves to be mean to Hamilton, but what has Hamilton ever done to you? Nothing, and we must protect that flat, grey city like we are Dannevirke Vikings who just discovered Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. This slogan comes straight from the Stokes Valley playbook, warning us to lower our expectations while also preparing to raise them. Like Auckland, Hamilton hooned down the slippery slogan highway, veering from “City of the future” (nobody tell Rolleston) to “Where it’s happening”. Sadly, the city is yet to embrace one former resident’s inspiring suggestion of “Humongous Hamilton”, which seems like the real issue here. 

Tuatapere: The sausage capital of the world

The holy trinity of slogans. It’s memorable, succinct, and most importantly, sausagey. 

Experts vouch that traditional knowledge can work in harmony alongside western scientific approaches to address the Pacific’s climate challenges.

People in Kiribati have noticed over the years that the taste of their water is not as fresh as it once was. Ground water in Kiribati is shallow and easily contaminated by the inadequate waste disposal system. That system coupled with rising sea levels, high tides and storm surges means Kiribati has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the Pacific.

This is the reality of a climate crisis. Kiribati has been the poster nation for climate change, with reports of its sinking from the early 2000s.

The recent IPCC synthesis report highlighted that in order for climate resilient development to be effective, it needs to have the foundation of diverse values and worldviews, including Indigenous knowledge.

Research manager for the Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment Dr Christina Laalaai-Tausa commented to the Science Media Centre that for years, Pacific communities relied on Indigenous knowledge that provided alternative ways for survival, and she agrees these methods need to be integrated with science and technology to ensure lives and ecosystems survive.

To do this, prioritising investment in climate finance to support adaptation and mitigation in the Pacific region is required, as the impacts are more urgently felt there. “The report highlighted that there is a huge threat to water and food security, which is the basis for survival,” Laalaai-Tausa says.

Last September, solar water distillation was installed in areas around Kiribati, with the first unit installed at Santo Iotebwa. But Laalaai-Tausa says more needs to be done, noting that climate financing per the Paris Agreement is still well below $100b a year, which she says is “utterly unacceptable”.

The political scientist says investing in renewable energy for electricity and sustainable development throughout the Pacific is crucial to reduce emissions by almost half by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050.

Fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas are by far the largest contributor to the changing climate, accounting for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions.

Laalaai-Tausa believes the Pacific needs to look at long term national and regional planning – like renewable energy sources – rather than short fixes that are no longer sustainable and in fact add more vulnerabilities to the region.

“Climate crisis is no longer just about climate. It is now an urgent matter of equity, social and climate justice and inclusion.”

While the report provided an improved understanding of climate resilient development, political and social scientist Dr Dalila Gharbaoui – who is also a part of the Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment – told The Spinoff it needed to address the benefits of collaboration in knowledge.

“It is a missed opportunity to understand how cultural capital, value systems, community-based social protection, collective actions, reciprocity, relational networks, trust and other important cultural mechanisms could be used to respond to the climate crisis,” she says.

Gharbaoui also noted that Indigenous lead authors are still underrepresented in the report, despite Indigenous peoples being the first impacted by the climate crisis.

She explains that an example of utilising Indigenous knowledge would be understanding climate mobility. “Research has shown that thresholds of inhabitability can vary; a place would be considered uninhabitable from a climate science perspective, but that same place would not be considered as such by communities that have various ways of defining habitability,” she says. 

A sense of belonging is important for a lot of Pacific people, and climate mobility cannot be understood through one-way thinking. “More and more evidence from across the globe is showing that people will mostly adapt to climate change using people-centred and social capital mechanisms and traditional knowledge can support understanding how these can be holistically addressed in future climate policy.”

The Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA), a research partnership between the University of Canterbury and the University of South Pacific and funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, aims to provide an integrated assessment of the climate crisis in the Pacific that gives voice to Pacific Indigenous knowledge systems and how they can work together in harmony with formal scientific approaches. 

This interdisciplinary approach incorporates Indigenous voices often missing from more conventional studies on climate change. Gharbaoui says it’s important that learnings, data, policy recommendations and results from such projects are considered in the design of future climate policies.

There are decades of evidence that traditional knowledge is an important form of knowledge that can support communities and policymakers to address the climate crisis. “For centuries, Indigenous peoples have been surviving in an extreme environment by using their traditional knowledge that provides alternative ways to protect nature and cope with extreme environmental conditions,” she says.

“This form of knowledge needs to be integrated with formal science and technology to support our future survival.”

This is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.