Wellington Mayor at odds with his own taskforce on three waters

Wellington City Mayor Andy Foster. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Wellington's mayor is yet to take a stance on the Government's three waters reform plan, prompting criticism from his colleagues that he is at odds with his own taskforce on the matter.

The Government has announced a proposal to move the ownership and management of water infrastructure from local councils and into the hands of four water services agencies, split regionally.

On Tuesday Foster told the Herald the council was already stepping up to the challenge and could probably get on top of it without change.

"The question is what does it mean for other parts of the country", he said.

But the council's Infrastructure Committee deputy chairwoman Jenny Condie said they definitely needed help and could not do it without change.

"What we've invested is the tip of the iceberg", she said.

While Foster is overall supportive of the need to make change, he has questions about what the Government has put on the table.

He has raised concerns about scale efficiency savings, whether every community needs to be upgraded to an A-grade system, and the lack of local control in the new entities.

Wellington City Council announced a mayoral taskforce into three waters after a broken pipe crisis. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Condie said Foster's comments were disappointing and inconsistent with the position of the mayor's own taskforce into three water issues.

At the beginning of 2020 Wellington City Council went into damage control over a crisis of bursting pipes and launched a mayoral taskforce into three waters.

The taskforce's final report concluded Wellington's approach to water was not working.

The council agreed to its findings, which included actively participating in the Government's national water reform agenda.

Councillors also agreed to commit to the concept of an independent, publicly-owned, not-for-profit, water management and asset-owning entity governed and operated under a statement of intent from shareholding councils.

Condie said the substance of the Government's reforms were entirely consistent with where the taskforce landed.

Foster said there has been a lot of new information made available since the taskforce last considered the matter and he needed time to digest it.

Wellington City Council Infrastructure Committee chairman. Photo / Sean Rush

Council Infrastructure Committee chairman Sean Rush said the mayor's focus has been on the spatial plan and the ten-year budget, whereas he has been "living and breathing" three waters.

"Aggregating and centralising expertise among four economic units make sense. At that very high level I'm supportive of it."

Rush said he had encouraged the mayor to openly support the reforms given Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel is finding it difficult to see a compelling case for change and Auckland mayor Phil Goff is refusing to buy in.

But Rush said he was not surprised Foster wanted to go over the detail.

Wellington Water, which currently looks after the city's three waters, has an aggressive capital programme ahead of it and needs all the resources the company currently has and more, he said.

Rush said he doesn't have any time for navel-gazing, parochialism, or political games.

"I just think that we need to get on with this and embrace it.

"If you're part of a takeover, you want to be the guys running it and steering it, not the guys who are having it done to you."