"The challenges facing Three Waters in Aotearoa are complex and have been put in the too hard basket for 20 years at both national and local levels. I have watched with interest, as councils have grappled with options for water management. I am no longer prepared to let local politics get in the way of solving these issues." That's the blunt message from Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta in her December 20 response to my November 12 letter to her, highlighting the seriously unfair impact the Government's Three Waters reform will have on the Kāpiti Coast.
What my letter said: "Our prudent and diligent investment in our Three Waters infrastructure has largely achieved the outcomes your reforms intend to do. Yet, your reforms, in your current modelling, will punish us with increasing costs, confiscation of our assets, and removal of our community's right to make local decisions".
My letter included our "submission" to the Government's eight-week engagement exercise with local councils. This submission outlined why the Government's case for reform, while certainly applicable to other councils, did not apply to Kāpiti. The numbers we crunched completely countered the assumptions made by the Government's consultant, the Water Industry Commission of Scotland's assessment across a range of areas including its modelling, asset values, capital expenditure, debt and operations expenditure...and more.
The letter also appended the September 2018 report by the Auditor General's Office which used a sample of four councils to study their demand management of water. Kāpiti was held up as a shining example. The letter stressed that we had not got a direct customised response to the counterfactuals our submission posed against the WICS' generalised assessment.
The Minister's December 20 response acknowledged this: "Firstly, I would like to thank Kāpiti Coast Council for the feedback you provided as part of the eight-week engagement period. The constructive comments provided by councils have highlighted a number of common areas that require further refinement, and my officials will be providing a response to your individual queries in due course". The Minister also made reference to the working group set up to review the proposals in the light of the response by councils and make recommendations to strengthen representations, governance and accountability arrangements for the aggregated entities. However, it's clear from the Minister's response that she is not diverting from her focus on a national solution to what is a legitimate historical problem of gross underinvestment and failing infrastructure across much of the local government sector.
