But as much as Christchurch’s new facility stands as a symbol of resilience, hope and recovery, so too does it illustrate the danger of a country with five million people having a regional approach to stadium construction.

In the past 15 years, about $1 billion has been spent on new stadiums in the South Island, where 900,000 people live.

The nonsensical element is that Christchurch’s One NZ stadium has usurped Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr as the best venue in the country, and now New Zealand has its two best venues competing directly with each other in a market where there is only going to be enough content for one survivor.

When big-name musicians are touring, they are not going to play Christchurch and Dunedin. It’s likely the All Blacks will make a similar decision – choosing to host tests in one city or the other, but not both in any given year.

Forsyth Barr stadium now seems destined to sit mostly empty, but for the weekends the Highlanders play and lure first-year students to the zoo for what has become a rite-of-passage event.

Dunedin’s Scottish heritage was perhaps critical in keeping an emphasis on frugality, and somehow the total spend on Forsyth Barr was kept to an almost ludicrously low $266m, meaning the city may now have a white elephant, but at least it didn’t come with an impossibly long burden of debt for the ratepayers.

Still, New Zealand has been left with two superb venues where no one lives, while the North Island – population 4.2 million – boasts a collection of ramshackle and poorly conceived venues, none of which can be described as truly fit-for-purpose.

Over the same 15 years in which $1 billion has been spent in the South Island, investment in the North Island has been less than $100m – mostly maintenance costs and small upgrade projects at Eden Park.

So while Dunedin’s students peer out the grimy windows of their Castle St slums, wondering what the big, empty, state-of-the-art building next to the Emersons Brewery is, Aucklanders are being drenched at Eden Park and Wellingtonians buffeted by a howling gale at Hnry Stadium.

It’s all a bit nonsensical and ad hoc, and while the Government has finally realised the economic benefits derived from hosting major entertainment events and set aside $40m to attract big-name performers, why not think much bigger than just doling out a few million here and there to bring State of Origin and Robbie Williams to New Zealand?

The artists and event promoters will inevitably end up the real winners of a contestable fund of this nature. In election year, the Government can win too, as it can gain considerable political capital in areas it might need that by paying to bring an act or event to town.

After all, what was behind the decision to pay $2m to bring State of Origin to Eden Park next year but a naked attempt to win over a mid-income demographic (mostly in Auckland) who may swing between Labour and National.

Instead of tossing around play money to ride on the coattails of populism, why not go all-in on big events as an economic driver and set aside $1b in a contestable fund for stadium infrastructure?

A Minister of Major Events (why not?) could create a co-ordinated, national strategy for stadium infrastructure projects and work to strike public-private partnerships, that not only gets things built but gets the right things built in the right places.

Private enterprise is hardly lining up to invest in stadium projects – newbuilds or rebuilds. Why would it, when the country is so fractionalised and localised in the way it thinks? The country operates at such a small scale in such an individualised manner as to make it almost inevitable that high-capital stadiums will never make a return on investment.

Governments are usually commercially inept, but that’s the expertise private enterprise brings, and all the politicians have to do is flash their credit rating.

There is a tourism angle to work into this mix, too, as Taylor Swift can bring the overseas visitors and Fiordland will keep them, and a $1b infrastructure fund could likely pay for itself 10 times over in any given year.

Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.