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Ministers visit Te Unua Museum of Southland

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Te Unua Museum of Southland

Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith and Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds visited Te Unua Museum of Southland, the new regional museum under development in Invercargill.

The national significance of Southland’s new regional museum, under development in Invercargill, has been recognised in a ministerial visit.

The physical build of Te Unua Museum of Southland was now in its final stages, ahead of its public opening next year.

Today, Hon. Paul Goldsmith and Hon. Penny Simmonds visited the site, alongside Invercargill Mayor Tom Campbell, Invercargill City Council Chief Executive Michael Day, and Te Unua Museum of Southland Director Eloise Wallace.

Mayor Campbell said the ministerial visit was an opportunity to highlight the significance of the project on both a local and national level.

“Te Unua is one of Invercargill City Council’s most significant infrastructure investments in a generation. Our aspiration for the new regional museum is to create a marquee cultural institution where the people of Southland see themselves, and their stories of the past, present, and the future, reflected within its visitor experience,” he said.

“Equally, we want to showcase and celebrate those stories with domestic and international visitors, to help them understand what makes our corner of the world inherently distinct and special. Our hope for Te Unua is that it gives people even more reason to visit Invercargill and Southland, and allows them to gain a rich understanding of our people and places.

“The scale of opportunity Te Unua represents for both our region, and New Zealand as a whole, is significant, and it was hugely beneficial to have an opportunity to discuss the roles central and local government can play in achieving our shared cultural, educational, tourism, and regional development outcomes,” he said.

Invercargill MP Simmonds said Te Unua Museum of Southland was a wonderful asset for the people of Invercargill and the whole province, and Council should be congratulated on what it had achieved.

“I’m impressed with the construction and scale of the facility and what it will mean for local people when it’s opened next year. It will be a great asset, providing each of us with an opportunity to reflect on our past, to understand our present and to look forward to the future,” she said.

“I’m so excited that this new facility will soon to be open for local people – I can just imagine it filled with families, with visiting school groups, retired people, and those holidaying in the south.

“We have waited a long time to have our museum returned to us. I’m delighted with what I’ve seen and I know that will be something that we can all enjoy and celebrate. The new museum will also be a real tourist drawcard for Invercargill, with the potential to benefit the local tourism and hospitality sectors economically,” she said.

Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Goldsmith said the project was impressive.

“Heritage and the arts and culture are very fundamental basics to any successful society and city, so I commend (Council) for the amazing facility they’re going to have here for generations,” he said.

Facilities like Te Unua were not only important in fostering a community’s understanding of its identity, but they were also a vital part of New Zealand’s tourism offering, he said.

“It’s also been an important part of how we make a living in this country, so I think this region’s going to be extremely well-equipped both in terms of both the local kids and citizenry understanding their history and their culture, but also in being a real attraction, set in this wonderful park, and opening up a fresh view, a fresh angle, on this part of the city. It’s very exciting.”

Wallace said Te Unua was set to provide a space for Southland’s communities to come together, to enrich their knowledge of how our histories had shaped the people, landscape, and broader identity of our region.

“Te Unua will connect our region’s nationally-significant collections with schools, whānau, researchers, and visitors from around the globe to encounter our stories in a meaningful and accessible way,” she said.

“We were pleased to be able to share an inside look of what is shaping up to be an incredible facility for not only our community, but one that we hope plays a key role in telling the wider New Zealand story, both with our Invercargill Member of Parliament Simmonds, and the Minister for Arts, Culture, and Heritage, Paul Goldsmith. Southland’s stories are worth celebrating, and Te Unua will give us a world-class platform to be able to do that.”

Te Unua Museum of Southland was expected to open to the public in 2027. To find out more, visit teunua.nz

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