KEY POINTS:
No sooner had Auckland City councillors got the billboards and signs debacle off their political plate with local body elections looming, than up popped an issue with wider political ramifications.
For the past fortnight, the issue of hefty water bills and more in the pipeline has blown up in councillors' faces. Their response has been to put up a screen of secrecy and denial.
Stung by criticism of double-digit rates rises in the first two years - coupled with huge spending pressures - Mayor Dick Hubbard and his City Vision-Labour-controlled council last year ordered Metrowater to provide a dividend of $280 million over 10 years.
It would take an idiot not to cotton on that increasing the annual dividend from $5 million to $18 million and then $24 million in the first two years meant bigger water bills.
The council had taken a gamble by assuring ratepayers in the consultation propaganda that the increases would be "small".
City Vision councillor Glenda Fryer noted ratepayers would have taken "small to be small", not the 9.6 per cent and 9.1 per cent increases dished up in just 10 months.
The policy of increasing dividends from Metrowater to pay for stormwater to free up money for spending on libraries and other non-water-related issues has rightly been labelled a "rates rise in drag". It has driven a wedge into City Vision-Labour, with leader Bruce Hucker out of step with the majority of his team in supporting the policy.
Citizens and Ratepayers Now and Action Hobson are also unclear where they stand. C&R Now councillors had a golden opportunity last week to practise what they preach on holding down rates. Instead, they used their casting votes to side with Mayor Hubbard and Dr Hucker to push through the 9.1 per cent increase.
As one insider noted, C&R Now want to be seen opposing the increases but are as keen as anyone to milk the council-owned water company.
Mr Hubbard has dug in his heels and put up commercial arguments to promise voters higher water bills. For a politician not gifted in the communications department, it will be like John Banks trying to sell the eastern highway across Hobson Bay to Parnell residents at the 2004 elections.
Into this mix is the nightmare of a parliamentary investigation into water bills smack bang in election year. Instead of a week or two of bad headlines, the council and Metrowater will be under the spotlight like never before.
The investigation has plenty of avenues to go down, all of them scary for councillors and the bean-counters at City Hall. Add plans by the region's monopoly water supplier to double prices to pay for capital works and it could turn into a full-blown inquiry into the water business of Auckland.
Having inflicted 10 years of water torture on ratepayers, there's a certain justice about councillors facing four months of water torture before the polls on October 13.
