Tauranga Ratepayers Alliance spokesman Michael O'Neill re concerns over Three Waters going ahead despite community upset at it.
Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has appointed mayors from around the country to a working group to come up with a solution to the impasse over three waters.
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff and Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel have been vocal critics of the reforms - both will be on theworking group.
Speaking to the Herald ahead of the announcement, Mahuta committed to carrying out the recommendations of the report, but only if it stuck to the terms of reference.
"The terms of reference become quite important - we want to make sure the primary drivers for the reform programme aren't significantly compromised," Mahuta said.
What this means is that the working group will have the difficult job of coming to a governance structure for the new water entities that does not undermine the many reasons for reform.
This could be complicated as the current, unpopular governance structure for the new entities is a result of the Government's three waters reform goals: namely to allow more investment in water and recognise Māori interests in water entities.
The current proposal is to take water assets like pipes and reservoirs and roll them into four national water entities.
Under the most recent governance proposal, a "Regional Representative Group", made up of local authority members and mana whenua, will vote on appointing an independent panel, and that panel will itself appoint board members to govern the local three waters entity.
This gives councils almost no control over the board of the entity, which it is two steps removed from. However, this governance structure was so unpopular when it was announced, Mahuta agreed to establish a working group to review it.
Mahuta listed the priorities any new governance model will need to recognise: "one, is balance sheet separation; two is maintaining a public ownership model safeguarding against privatisation; [three] ensuring good governance and professional competency oversight over the way in which she's water services operate, and also the partnership with Mana Whenua".
Mahuta said she would commit to implementing the recommendations of that review, "within the context of the terms of reference".
Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has promised to implement water changes. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Legislation creating the water entities will be well-advanced through Parliament by the time the working group reports back, but Mahuta said any changes could be made through a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP).
The main issue councillors will have to contend with is "balance sheet separation".
Balance sheet separation in the context of water means the water entities need to have sufficient independence for councils to be able to be considered truly independent entities, and have better access to debt markets.
This is important because the Government wants the water entities to be able to invest as much as $185 billion in the next three decades, much of it borrowed. It argues, the key to accessing cheap borrowing is independence from councils.
"There is the constraint to council balance sheets - it's certainly the challenge for Auckland with Watercare.
"Watercare has had to defer a range of capital works investments because of the constraint balance sheet with Auckland [Council]," Mahuta said.
"So there is no one size fits all CCO [Council-Controlled Organisation] type model," Mahuta said.
Mahuta said that an Watercare-style CCO solution was impossible, because ultimately the Government would have had to underwrite council water investment.
"As we did the analysis around further conditioning the CCO model, the Government in some way shape or form would have to underwrite some nature of their activity," she said.
The Working Group members are:
Independent chairman: Doug Martin
Elected members of local authorities: Mayor Phil Goff, Auckland, Mayor Dr Jason Smith, Kaipara, Mayor Garry Webber, Western Bay of Plenty, Mayor Neil Holdom, New Plymouth, Mayor Campbell Barry, Lower Hutt, Mayor Rachel Reese, Nelson, Mayor Lianne Dalziel, Christchurch, Mayor Tim Cadogan, Central Otago, and Mayor Lyn Patterson, Masterton.
Iwi/Māori representatives: Ngarimu Blair, Jamie Tuuta, Karen Vercoe, Ngahiwi Tomoana, Olivia Hall, Gabrielle Huria, Barry Bragg, and John Bishara. (One further representative for Entity A to be confirmed)
Chair of the joint Central-Local Government Three Waters Steering Committee: Brian Hanna
