KEY POINTS:
The lobbying by some local body officers and councillors (especially within Auckland City Council) to have legislation introduced to allow Watercare Services to price water for profits and dividends is reprehensible and in my view unethical.
Watercare is the bulk supplier of water to most of this region's population and if people do not stand up and tell their parliamentary, regional and local body representatives to reject this proposal, the consequences will be felt far and wide and for a long time.
Here's the proposal: Watercare would be authorised to increase prices and thus produce profits to whatever levels local councils (as owners on our behalf) think fit.
These councils could then spend this new income on stormwater disposal and the money already allocated for stormwater in council 10-year financial plans (LTCCPs) would be spent elsewhere.
It is simply additional rating by sleight of hand.
So what's wrong with this proposal? Plenty!
* Water is a human necessity and should be available to all at the lowest possible cost. It should not be used as a cash cow (or cash fountain).
* Water should be available across the region on an equitable basis and not used as a covert rating device, especially one which would benefit those living in the largest city - with consequences for all of the others in the region.
* It is worth noting that the two largest owners are Auckland City and Manukau which dominate the Shareholders' Representative Group which decides the key matters relating to Watercare. The chair of that Group is Dr Bruce Hucker of Auckland City and, not surprisingly, he is promoting the whole project.
* Auckland City has already been following a similar course through its unpopular Metrowater using high water charges to provide it with major profits to spend on projects, while claiming to keep its general rates down.
* To extend this example to Watercare would mean that water users throughout the region would be paying a premium on their bulk water to provide a profit and this would be in addition to the 9 per cent plus increase a year for the next 10 years already announced by Watercare.
It is likely that if this proposal is authorised, not only will the bulk water from Watercare collect profits (really rates) but many, if not all councils would be likely to ensure that their retail water delivery organisations followed Auckland City's Metrowater example and require them to charge for profits also.
Unfortunately, there is a wider and even more ominous potential outcome which would be of national concern.
Until relatively recently, New Zealand and many other countries have considered that supplying good quality water to citizens at the lowest possible cost was a fundamental duty and a basic human right and to this end the responsibility has traditionally rested with publicly owned and publicly directed authorities.
This basic right and principle is now under attack as people such as Dr Hucker present schemes and ideologies which would pervert that system.
Introducing the idea that water can be treated simply as an ordinary commodity and used for profit would make it much easier for the law of public ownership and not for profit to be changed, thus easing the way for the profit-hungry, non-accountable international water companies to purchase and control our water for their own ends.
The public should oppose these proposals to their utmost - or be willing to suffer the consequences.
We should demand that all our political parties address this issue and endorse an all-party agreement to entrench a law protecting our water and our rights. An "entrenched" law would require a 75 per cent vote of Parliament to change it.
This law would ideally provide that public water supplies could not be privatised and that public supply authorities would be required to supply water at cost.
Should any surplus arise in any one year, it would be mandatory to be used either for improvements to that supply, or alternatively to reduce costs to customers in the following year.
* Tony Holman has been a chairman of directors of Watercare Services and a member of the Shareholders' Representative Group (until 2003). He is a North Shore City councillor.
