A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
The contentious “Three Waters” reforms have lost that label and gained a lot more local voice through a reduced level of centralisation — with the Gisborne District now matched with Hawke’s Bay — plus what we can expect to be a concerted communication effort from the Government.
Now merely awater services reform plan, or “affordable water reforms”, the original four mega entities (that we were told was the way to maximise the benefits of amalgamation) have become 10 regional water services entities.
This alleviates the concerns of smaller towns and councils over loss of control, with their voice much less diluted in smaller water entities grouped with closer communities of interest and shared issues. Regional partnerships between local authorities and iwi/Maori will have oversight of the entities.
The message remains that combining water infrastructure and services to create balance sheet separation between these entities and local government is the only effective way to meet the challenge of needing to invest an estimated $120 billion-$185bn in water infrastructure over the next 30 years.
In tables showing the benefits of the reform plan for ratepayers, Gisborne and Wairoa residents have among the biggest savings; household water services costs in 2054 are seen as being $4010 for our entity with the reform plan, while under the “current council approach” Gisborne ratepayers would apparently be paying $16,700 that year and Wairoa ratepayers $20,860. Other information and comment from Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty that the reforms will deliver savings to households nationwide of between $2770-$5400 per year by 2054 puts a question mark over those extreme numbers.
In previewing major changes to water reform plans earlier this week — the last and probably the gnarliest item on his reprioritisation and makeover agenda — Prime Minister Chris Hipkins owned up to the Government having let down former responsible Minister Nanaia Mahuta, by not supporting her and collectively not explaining its water infrastructure policy better.
“I think it was really unfortunate that she ended up copping the level of disgusting abuse that she did,” Hipkins told reporters, adding that was a “collective reflection” as all Government decisions were made collectively. This time around the Government would take “more of a team approach to communicating what we’re doing around the future of water infrastructure”, he said.
