SPEAKERS

This page will be updated as new speakers are confirmed.

Hon Chris Bishop

Chris Bishop is the Minister of Housing, Minister for Infrastructure, Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Minister for Sport and Recreation, Leader of the House, and Associate Minister of Finance. He is the MP for Hutt South.

Chris was born and raised in Lower Hutt where he lives with his wife and young son. He has a first-class Honours degree in Law and a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University of Wellington, and was the 2006 Young Wellingtonian of the Year.

Before serving as an MP, Chris worked as a researcher for the National Party in Opposition and was later an advisor to Ministers in the John Key-led Government.
Chris was the National Party Campaign Chair for the 2023 General Election.

Hon Tama Potaka

Tama Potaka is the Minister for Māori Development, Minister for Whānau Ora, Minister of Conservation, Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti, and Associate Minister of Housing. He is also the MP for Hamilton West.

He has had a diverse career across legal, public service, education, advisory, tribes, investment, charities and enterprise. He was the chief executive of Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki prior to entering politics. He has also worked as a senior advisor to the NZ Super Fund and spent more than seven years as a general manager at Tainui Group Holdings in Hamilton.

Tama has a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) from Victoria University and a Master of Laws from Columbia University.

Tama is married to Ariana and they have three children – Tiaria, Te Awarua and Aorangi. He is proudly from Rangitīkei, Ruapehu, Whanganui, Taranaki, Horowhenua, Hawke’s Bay and the Central North Island – and is a Chiefs fan.

Professor Damon Salesa

Vice-Chancellor, Auckland University of Technology

Professor Damon Salesa is the Vice-Chancellor of Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau – Auckland University of Technology (AUT). He leads a university of over 26,000 students and 4,000 staff – one of the largest universities in New Zealand.

Damon is a prize-winning scholar who specialises in history, society, and politics in New Zealand and the Pacific.

After obtaining his MA with First Class Honours at the University of Auckland, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

He is the author and editor of many books and academic articles including Island Time: New Zealand’s Pacific Futures and Racial Crossings: Race, Intermarriage and the Victorian British Empire, which won the international Ernest Scott Prize in 2012 and recently published a book titled An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays which recently won an Ockham Book Award this year.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and a Fellow of Oxford University’s Oriel College.

He is also actively engaged with critical work in education, innovation, and pedagogy, and is a publicly engaged scholar around questions of inequality, politics, and education. Damon has worked, studied, and collaborated in New Zealand, across the Pacific, in Australia, the USA, and the UK.

Professor John Tookey

Professor, Auckland University of Technology

I am Professor at AUT in the School of Future Environments. I am the programme leader for 2 postgraduate programme - the Master of Construction Management (MCM) and the Master of Engineering Project Management (MEPM) as well as being the director of international for the School of Future Environments. I have extensive responsibilities for establishment of new programmes (4 new undergrad engineering majors), continuation of successful research initiatives and development of new research thematics. Typically at any one time I will have 6-7 PhD students under supervision necessitating a wide interest in various aspects of the construction process. In terms of wider public interest engagement I have numerous radio, TV and press contributions dealing with construction engineering and housing issues in NZ. I have developed a significant amount of industry based/funded research, in conjunction with Winstone Wallboards, Fletchers, BRANZ, Waste Minismisation Fund, BIF etc. Recently I was a science lead for National Science Challenge 11 'Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities'. I have also conducted various research projects on Design Management in Construction (in association with BRANZ), Considerate construction (in association with BRANZ) and the development of the offsite manufacturing industry in construction (in association with OffSiteNZ).

My key areas of research are related to construction logistics and supply chain management. Some of the logistics models developed by myself and my research collaborators in this domain are highly significant since they are extremely new in this area. Consequently my research record includes a significant number of related papers that have established confirmed and developed wider applicability of logistics models for construction. The logistics based work has been a natural extensive of my previous construction procurement work. However procurement practice has also been significant over recent years, developing a transaction based framework for procurement selection. This is novel in the field.

In addition, work has developed in aspects of service quality in housing. This has included historically issues of building defects, and latterly service quality in housing. As the department has expanded and grown I have started to become more actively involved in the wider aspects of sustainability and technology in construction (e.g. BIM).