With signs the door to regional development has opened a crack, southern interests must push hard and push fast.
While it is fine for Otago's mayors to respond positively to the possibility of the Government reviewing its regional development stance, what is really required is decisive - even aggressive - action.
Prime Minister John Key, at the local government conference in Hamilton, this week indicated the Government is rethinking its views on this matter.
Answering a question from the mayor of Otorohanga, a small North Island rural district north of Te Kuiti, Mr Key said he saw the sense in encouraging economic activity and building infrastructure in the regions because the development in Auckland was creating enormous pressures on the city's infrastructure.
Under-used infrastructure around the rest of New Zealand was not in the country's best long-term interests, and the Government had been investigating how to encourage regional economic activity.
''So the question is how do you encourage that economic activity, and we've been doing a bit of thinking around that area and I wouldn't say it's completely crystallised yet,'' he said. ''What I can say is the sort of things that help are when we continue to build infrastructure around the rest of the country.''
Mr Key said huge new roading and rail announcements in Auckland had been deliberately separate from the Land Transport Fund paid from petrol taxes so they didn't take away from roading projects in the rest of the country. He also referred to ultra-fast broadband and rural broadband as another way Government was investing in regions. And he mentioned the benefits of the more stable and often lower cost workforces in smaller towns and cities outside Auckland.
Although the population and power of Auckland (in particular) and Christchurch skews political attention and patronage, Mr Key and National will also see some value in gathering votes in the regions. He will also be sensitive to the growing resentment about the focus on Auckland and Christchurch, and a few soothing words to local government leaders would seem to do no harm.
But talk is cheap, and much more than that is required from the Government. Despite those words, all taxpayers are still paying a huge whack for Auckland transport and for a large conference centre and a substantial portion of the proposed roofed stadium in Christchurch.
Despite those words, the Government and its companies and agencies are leading the way in draining other areas as services are centralised (like Dunedin's immigration office and postal sorting, and as seems likely from the nation-wide Winz review) or on the verge of being lost - like the preparation of main hospital meals.
Talk is cheap from local politicians, too. Southern mayors can bleat about the need for regional development. But where is the immediate action? Have they already seized the opportunity given to them by Mr Key and demanded appointments to hassle the Prime Minister, his department, other ministers, other ministries?
Are councils' relevant senior staff already pushing strategies for tax processing, a government call centre, an IT development project or such like to be based outside Christchurch or Wellington? How vigorously are local politicians and their staff defending and promoting the rights and the infrastructure of the countryside and country towns?
The door is just ajar. It must be pushed and banged. The meek will be sidelined and ignored. Much of this effort might be forlorn. But possibilities must be pursued and political pressure must be applied. Mr Key, ever the pragmatist, and the Cabinet were able to overturn the views of some of the most senior ministers on the inner-city Auckland rail route when that suited.
So what is to stop Mr Key again being less ideological and showing a more flexible and practical approach than Regional Development Minister Steven Joyce, who says it is up to the regions themselves to promote and encourage businesses in setting up and staying in their areas?
