Andrew Dickens: Our water infrastructure simply isn't getting better

The Government’s new plan for water services is called Local Water Done Well. It’s all about keeping control in the hands of local councils and communities, rather than shifting everything to big centralised bodies. 

Which was what Three Waters did. Eventually Labour caved and the policy got renamed 10 Waters because there would be 10 regionalised bodies, but even that was not popular. And of course there was the troublesome identity politics around Māori co-governance that freaked a lot of people out.

So now, Councils have to submit Water Services Delivery Plans showing how they’ll manage drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater safely, sustainably, and affordably. 

There’s still strong oversight from regulators, but the focus is on local decision-making, community accountability, and better outcomes for everyone. 

So Councils must submit their Water Services Delivery Plans (WSDPs) to the Secretary for Local Government and the deadline is the third of September. These plans outline how each council will deliver and fund water services - that’s tomorrow and it’s looking like it’s going to be a bust 

And the big sticking point is funding, which was at the core of Three Waters. Three Waters was going to force water services to be amalgamated, the assets used to borrow against, and the loans paid off by water rates, not rates.

Local Water Done Well allows for that to happen too, but the difference is that it has to be done voluntarily by the councils, and they don’t want to do that. 

Here’s a concrete example: Thames Coromandel is a nightmare water services situation. The area is mountainous and the weather events extreme. There’s hardly any ratepayers and the population expands immensely in the summer.

The Thames Coromandel Council wanted to join forces with Tauranga and Western Bays to form a bigger regional body to fund water off their existing assets. 

Tauranga doesn’t want the hassle of Thames Coromandel and so the deal hasn’t happened. The estimation is that this will put 500 to 600 dollars onto the Thames Coromandel rates. We all want better water, but we all want lower rates.

We’ll find out tomorrow what’s going to happen with water but at the moment it looks like the policy should be renamed Local Water, done not very well and not funded.

After all the talk about water reform we’re right back at where we started from and you, the ratepayer, will have to pay for it. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's took the really important stuff. Let's took water. The
government's new plan for water services has called local Water
Done Well. It's all about keeping control on the hands
of local councils and communities rather than creating those big
centralized bodies, which was what three Waters did. Eventually, Labour's
three Waters idea caved and the policy got renamed ten
Waters because there'll be ten bodies. But even that wasn't popular,

(00:22):
and of course it was that troublesome politics around Maldi
co governance that freaked a lot of people out. So
now we've got national in and councils have to submit
their water services delivery plans showing how they'll manage drinking water,
wastewater and storm water. There'll be oversight from regulators, but
the big focuses on local decision making and community accountability
and better outcomes. And that water service delivery plan has

(00:46):
to be delivered to the Secretary for Local Government tomorrow
the third of September. And these plans outline how each
council will deliver and fund water services. It looks to
me like it's going to be a bus and the
big sticking point is funding, which was actually at the
core of three Waters. Three Waters was going to force
water services to be amalgamated. The assets used to borrow

(01:08):
against and the loans paid off by water rates, not rates,
to give them more money to fix the pipes. Local
waters had done well allows for that to happen too,
but the big difference was it has to be done
voluntarily by the councils, and it turns out they don't
want to do that. And I'll give you a concrete example.
Thames Corrimandal might be a water services situation. The place
is mountainous, the weather events extreme, there's hardly any ratepayers,

(01:31):
and then the population explodes in summer. The Thames Corimandal
Council wanted to join forces with Todonga and Western Bays
to form a bigger regional body to fund the water
off their existing assets. But Teodonger doesn't want the hassle
of Thames Coramandal. Who would and so that deal hasn't happened.
And the estimation is that this is going to put
five to six hundred dollars onto the Thames Corimandal rates.

(01:55):
Now we all want better water, but we also want
lower rates, and we're going to find out tomorrow what's
going to happen with the water. But at the moment,
to me, it looks like the policy should be renamed
local Water, done not very well and not funded. And
after all the talk about water reform, we're right back
at where we started from. And you and I and
all the ratepayers are the ones who are going to

(02:16):
have to pay for it. For more from Early edition
with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news talks. It'd be
from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.