Everyone who's looked into it agrees our water infrastructure isn't up to scratch at the moment.
One in five of us live in areas where the drinking water doesn't meet government quality standards. In 2020 alone, there were 3385 sewage overflows – human waste running down our streets or into our rivers or on to our beaches. The result is that around 34,000 of us get sick from issues with our drinking water each year.
So, next time your stomach's upset, don't worry about the chicken curry you ate, the prime suspect is probably your kitchen tap.
And these problems are only going to get worse.
The Auditor-General found that most of the water infrastructure owned by local councils will need to be replaced or repaired in the next 20 to 40 years.
The cost of this is staggering. International experts estimate it could cost up to $180 billion.
That's about half of our entire annual GDP, and that's without factoring in New Zealand's high levels of risk from earthquakes or climate change.
So, the question is how do we pay for this, and who should get the job of rebuilding and managing our water infrastructure?
The Government's reform plan argues that those local councils alone won't get the job done.
That's because councils can only fund projects by either raising rates or borrowing money directly. That means residents would either be hit with hefty rate rises (water rates would need to be up to seven times higher than they are today in cities, up to eight times higher in provincial towns, and up to thirteen times higher in rural areas) or be buried under a mountain of council debt. And that's if councils can even find a way to borrow that much, which is doubtful.
For pensioners or financially pressured homeowners, those sorts of rate rises and debt would break the bank.
The Government argues we'd be better off putting the infrastructure in the hands of large, dedicated water management entities which could get economies of scale on building and repairing infrastructure to bring down the price, be able to share expertise and expert workers, borrow at cheaper rates using their own balance sheets, and won't be as likely to underfund their infrastructure because of short term political pressures.
None of that on the surface should be especially controversial, apart from with local councils which object to losing power. But those councils work for us and if they aren't up to the job, we should take it off them.
In fact, it's worth remembering that the current reform programme actually started under Bill English, in response to the tragedy at Havelock North. It's likely that had English been re-elected, the reforms may have actually looked pretty similar to what's being proposed now.
After all, it's not an especially partisan idea that larger infrastructure providers can buy in bulk and keep the cost down. It's hardly radical to suggest that there might be more efficient ways to build things than having 67 local councils split the job between themselves.
So, it's hard to escape the conclusion that there's a bit of opposition for opposition's sake coming from critics of these reforms. And it's worth asking: if the people who are so angry about this really have a better way to fix the pipes, why haven't they suggested it by now?
Hayden Munro was the campaign manager for Labour's successful 2020 election win. He now works in corporate PR for Wellington-based firm Capital Communications and Government Relations.
