Local MP Jacqui Dean believes the government’s Three Waters plan is way off the mark, while Local Government New Zealand welcomes the reform announcement. 

National’s Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean thinks the government’s Three Waters plan short-sighted and far from convincing.

The Waitaki electorate covers much of the Manuherekia catchment area, which is a hotly contested river in regards to water management and governance. 

Amalgamating water services will side-line Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes ratepayers  and see them lose control of local water services, Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean says.

“While there’s a clear case for change in our Three Waters sector, the model released by the Government is far from convincing,” Jacqui says. 

“Without an implementation plan for us to look at it’s hard to see how the water assets in this area can be easily merged with those in Waimate or the Mackenzie District.

“The whole Three Waters process has been poorly handled. Across the country, councils have been asking fair questions of the Government which have gone unanswered – something I find totally unacceptable.

Jacqui thinks the Three Waters plan will mean local councils will lose control of a precious commodity – water. 

Entering into a shared services agreement won’t necessarily improve water quality or benefit local ratepayers, she says. 

“We all want to see improvements in the quality of water services but this should have been done properly with meaningful input from those it will ultimately affect,” Jacqui says. 

“National supports a water regulator with greater power to set and enforce standards.

“We should be enhancing Three Waters capability and incentivising change where it is led locally and able to happen at a natural pace.”

Meanwhile Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) has welcomed the Government’s latest Three Waters announcement as an important step in letting councils see how reform would affect their communities.

Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is the peak body representing New Zealand's 78 local, regional and unitary authorities. 

“For over a year now, councils have been waiting patiently to see how they will be impacted by the proposed reforms, having previously only seen the costs and benefits at a national level,” LGNZ President Stuart Crosby says.

“This includes seeing the number and boundaries of the proposed water entities.

“It’s been challenging to have an evidence-based discussion on the ground, given council-specific facts weren’t available.

This week’s announcement comes almost a month after the release of national-level modelling that was produced by the Water Industry of Scotland, as well as supporting analysis that calibrated and peer-reviewed that work.

Stuart says LGNZ has ramped up its technical capacity in anticipation of this week’s release of individual council analysis, with the aim of supporting councils as they unpack and assess their information.

“Councils will need to assess the output of the modelling across as range of criteria to assess the potential impacts on their communities, which won’t be as simple as ‘spread sheet says X’,” Stuart says.

“That’s because some of the calls will be qualitative, and also because the data that councils themselves supplied for the modelling is just a single snapshot in time that needs to be extrapolated over the 30-year reform period.

“The data released is just a part of the puzzle, and there are other pieces of information that are vital in understanding the potential impact of reform.

“We are supporting members to interrogate and analyse how the reform proposal would affect them, taking all the available pieces of data into account”.