Andrew Little: Wellington mayor on whether an inquiry will take place into the Moa Point wastewater incident

Wellington's mayor says questions can come later on who'll pay to fix the failed Moa Point wastewater treatment plant.

The facility's failed catastrophically and wastewater's still flowing into the ocean - with no end in sight.

Work's continuing at the site to lets teams assess what's gone wrong.

Andrew Little says regional Wellington mayors have been quick to comment on whether they'll help pay.

But he says those decisions haven't been made.

"At the end of the day, Moa Point plant belongs to Wellington City Council - it's our responsibility. We need to get it fixed and up and running, we don't want to quibble about who's paying." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To Wellington. So it seems that councils around the Wellington
region don't seem terribly keen on stumping up cash to
help Wellington City fix the broken More Points sewage plant.
At the moment, Wellington water is owned and funded by
the Wellington the Hut, the Upper Hut, the Portado and
the South Wided, Upper and Greater Wellington Regional Councils, but
already south Wided up as mayor has set a hard
no and the other three mayors and non commissial. Andrew

(00:21):
Little is the Mayor of Wellington and he's with us. Now, Hi, Andrew,
should they help you pay?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah? I'm not quite sure what they're getting anxious about.
The way willing to water works is that each of
the council who works for puts in a capital fund
at the beginning of each year with an expectation about
particular work that's going to be done. We've done that
and there's a little bit of money left over, so
that might go into the plant. But at the end

(00:49):
of the day, of my point plant belongs to Willington
City Council. It's our responsibility. We need to get it
fixed and up and running. We don't want to quibble
about who's paying and assurance and all that sort of stuff.
At this point, at right now, recovery is priority. Then
we've got to get it fixed and that's what we
will do, and we'll sort out the arrangements for paying
for it when.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
We have to sort out the arrangements with who with.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Running the water and or its replacement for us and
various parties insurance. You know, there's three parties involved here,
each insured. The question about who pays ultimately is further
down the tree. The critical thing is to get the
work to get the plant fixed up and doing this

(01:36):
job again. If it is.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Found that Veolia, who run the plant, have done some
have made a huge mistake and it is all their fault,
will they be penalized.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah. Look, I'm not across the content of the country
between between Running Water and Bolia and which I think
is going to be picked up by Jakubaye Metro Water
when they take over on the first of July. So
that'll be matter for those entities and when they get
to that point that if you if you don't, if

(02:08):
you don't perform to the standard you have contractor to
Usually in a contract, these consequences. They're going to have
to see what that is.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
I see that you want to shut down this scap
or close the gap between the commercial rates and the
residential rates in your city, which I like frequently complained
about because they are apparently some of them. That differential
is one of the highest in the country. Are you
actually going to be able to do it, because I don't.
It doesn't sound like you have counsel backing.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Oh, it's about the pace at which we can do it.
We've got process of putting the budget for the next
financial year together that the first priority is cut spending.
So that's what we're focused on at the moment. At
a later phase of them looking at how you distribute
the revenue that you need to raise to do what
you have to do. At the moment, we've got a
commercial differential which is three point seven times the equivalent

(02:57):
residential rate. It's been up, you know, a couple of
times in the last few years on the promise that
it would go back down. But of course if it
goes back down and that changes spending, then residential rates
go up even faster. So we're going to get spending
under control, get down under control. Then look at the
way we write different properties. But I'm committed to getting

(03:20):
the commercial differential down.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Okay, we'll beast of luck with it, Andrew, and thank
you for your time, Andrew Little, Wellington Mayor. For more
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