Taupō District Council’s views

We acknowledge the increasing demands on these water services related to urban growth, pressures from the current funding models based on rates and the drive for better environmental outcomes.

Councils, as service providers, have been universally tarred with the same brush. There has been little recognition that many councils are excellent managers of the water services they provide, and that substantial community investment has been, and continues to be, made. We can see potential to combine stronger environmental regulation, linked to more sustainable funding models that move away from rates, but are still based on local delivery with all the benefits that provides. This requires courage from legislators to take a breath and allow time to properly explore these options.

One of the key challenges any organisation faces is prioritising many conflicting outcomes. At the moment the bill is written as ‘we’ll have it all’, with no consideration as to how trade-offs and prioritisation, and complex decision making will be made. With the complex governance structures, it may be tricky for these groups to agree what the priorities should be. Our concern is that the views from within the new water service entities will override those of the community.

There appears to be an ideological drive to centralise the planning and delivery of services. This has been justified because it will deliver significant cost efficiencies for consumers and better environmental outcomes for the community. We don’t believe this, mostly because we have on the ground, real experience actually delivering these services. Chasing cost efficiencies through scale and centralisation is likely to lead to more layers of bureaucracy, ineffective decision making and poor visibility across the organisation and then exploitation by contracted service providers

Water services are not like power and telecommunications. You can cut ties with one power company and sign up with another. That doesn’t apply to water services and means that they needed to be treated differently to other utility services. These services fundamentally shape the growth and well-being of our communities. We don’t expect a utility organisation based on Hamilton, Tauranga or New Plymouth to understand the needs of our communities several hours away. Their delivery needs to remain with local organisations that know and understand those communities.

We can see that the proposed Bill has tried to make the connection, however it needs to explicitly involve territorial authorities. As councils we have legislative responsibilities to enable urban growth so that the residential, industrial and commercial land markets operate efficiently and effectively. We need to connect the demands for different land uses with the provision of infrastructure to enable it to happen. That is a time critical exercise. This Bill, physically and institutionally, separates planning for urban development and the provision of infrastructure. We think that will lead to inefficiencies and poor outcomes. There is nothing in this Bill that suggests the growth needs of our communities will be met in a timely manner.

We can see the window dressing in this Bill and it provides no comfort at all. There is a regional representative group that we are unlikely to have a seat on, given there are 22 councils and only a maximum of seven seats. There is the potential for regional advisory panels, but there is no certainty they will exist or that we will be part of one. Even if they are established, they are effectively toothless with no decision making or influence on the development of strategic and performance expectations. There are token requirements for engagement, but the message is clear: Entity B is to operate water services as a utility and local government is to be kept at arms-length so it cannot interfere. This strikes at the heart of local democracy. It’s not good enough.

We can see that the Government wishes to push through wide ranging changes right across the scope of central government and local government services. Frankly, the Government is trying to do too much too fast and in the wrong order. We are frustrated that the reform of three waters has preceded the wider review of local government.

This infrastructure is critical to growing our communities and delivering well-beings. It has been at the heart of what we do as local government. We are also frustrated that there appears to be little integration between the changes to planning functions under the Resource Management Act 1991 and these reforms.