Peter Beaven: Councils must have right to charge for water

Peter Beaven.

Experts estimate that by 2050, as much as 40 per cent of the world's population will not have a reliable and safe source of drinking water.

The relative abundance of high quality water in this country therefore offers us a significant competitive advantage.

So much so that already local and foreign entrepreneurs are swooping in for the opportunity to make money.

Over the past five years the Hawke's Bay Regional Council has issued ten consents for water bottling totalling five million cubic metres, or five billion litres of water.

Putting aside any arguments about whether the aquifer has sufficient reserves to sustain this use for the moment, why would we give away the competitive advantage it gives our region without extracting value for the local community?

The answer is a simple. Because the Government has taken the position that no one owns water, therefore no one can be charged for it. Local bodies can only charge for the cost of delivery.

This was National's knee-jerk response to iwi claims of co-ownership of the resource. This impasse could have been simply fixed if the Government reply had been, "Actually, you already own the water. Everyone owns it."

Now we find local leaders like Tukituki MP Crag Foss toeing the party line and parroting the "No one owns the water" mantra when it is clearly wrong and not supported by the vast majority of his constituents.

And defending the indefensible merely serves to delay the important conversation on this issue which we must have as a community.

The only sensible outcome is for local communities to be able to choose which commercial uses, if any, should attract a charge.

Mr Foss is simply scaremongering by suggesting that this would drag down the local economy. Farmers and orchardists need not feel threatened by this - no one locally is suggesting that their added-value uses of water should attract a levy.

But at just a two cent charge per litre for water bottling on the five million cubic metres of consents granted, the Hawkes Bay Regional Council could generate an annual income of $100 million if only the law let them charge for water bottling.

Rates could be minimised and the level of investment in much-needed environmental restoration for our region's waterways and eroding hill country could be dramatically increased.

I say bring on Labour Napier MP Stuart Nash's private members bill to introduce the right for Councils to charge for water.

And if it gets to the House for debate, please Mr Foss, think of the people you represent, not the Party.

Peter Beaven is a Hawke's Bay Regional councillor.