KEY POINTS:
Why are you so opposed to the "user pays" concept for water usage? How else should local authorities charge for water?
S Patel, Auckland
Water is a vital necessity for life. Affordable water is a basic human right. Water and waste water services are essential for public health
and sanitation. "User pays" disproportionately burdens large, poor families who need more water, and people on low, fixed incomes such as pensioners. The Water Pressure Group wants the cost of supplying water and of taking away waste water to come from proportional property-based rates, as in Christchurch. We believe this spreads the burden more fairly.
You claim that the user-pays concept for water violates international human rights. Surely privatisation is an accepted and effective business model these days. Why should water be excluded?
M Robertson, Kerikeri
The United Nations committee on economic, social and cultural rights says "any payment for water services has to be based on the principle of equity, ensuring that these services... are affordable for all, including socially disadvantaged groups."
Why is Auckland's water so much more expensive than elsewhere?
R Richards, Remuera, Auckland
Because under Metrowater, Auckland City's water services are used as a cash cow. Metrowater's scope of work, as stated in its "customer contract" and statement of corporate intent is only for the provision of water and waste water services. The Water Pressure Group holds that user charges for water, measured by water meter, turns water into a commodity. Nobody "makes" water. The WPG disputes that water should be charged for. It is the service of bringing the water into our homes and taking away the waste water that should be charged for.
You call yourself a "water warrior." What drives you to get so fired up about water?
L Lacey, Rotorua
The name "water warrior" is not one I gave myself. The name was given to 60 water activists (including me) who went to the World Water Forum in Kyoto in 2003 to oppose the water multi-nationals' global agenda to spread water privatisation. I am the spokeswoman for a group of ordinary New Zealanders who have been doing an extraordinary job for the last nine years. We are the "Joe Karams" defending our basic human right to affordable, safe water. If it wasn't for the staunch and determined stand of Water Pressure Group members and our "sister" groups Citizens Against Privatisation (CAP) and Manukau Pressure Group, our water services in Auckland would have gone down the "commercialise, corporatise, privatise" path that saw billions of dollars worth of public property sold off under Rogernomics.
Do you think the Government should intervene to set maximum levels that companies like Metrowater can charge?
L Maxwell, Titirangi, Auckland
The WPG believes that Metrowater - the commercialised, profit-making model for water services - has been a rort perpetrated on the public. We have over nine years of accumulated evidence which proves that "user charges" are not more fair. The commercialised model for water services, whether publicly or privately owned and operated, is fundamentally opposed to water conservation because the companies lose money if less water is used. It is the commercialised model for water services and "user pays" as the method of payment that must be abolished.
