It is ‘no thanks’ to Three Waters
An approving voice was hard to find around New Plymouth’s council chamber on Tuesday when elected members met in an extraordinary meeting to discuss the Government’s Three Waters reforms.
The meeting was primarily called to discuss a submission on the Water Entities Services Bill, but also included a motion from councillor Murray Chong to join Communities For Local Democracy.
On the former, councillors had in front of them a pre-drafted submission outlining just why it opposed the bill and the proposed entity boundaries.
The bill, which is currently out for public consultation, will establish four publicly owned water services entities that will take over the responsibility for providing drinking water, wastewater and storm water services across the country.
New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom led the debate, saying the region would be far better off with a Taranaki-wide entity, something he said had the support of South Taranaki and Stratford district councils.
While acknowledging there was still a lot of work to do on New Plymouth’s water infrastructure, he said the council was being proactive with a number of big ticket items in its longterm budget to meet the expectations of service from its ratepayers.
‘‘The Government is looking to go too far, too fast on this,’’ he said.
Holdom’s views were echoed by a number of councillors, including Gordon Brown, who likened the reforms to ‘‘legal theft’’, while Tony Bedford said the Government had lost all trust on the issue through its flipflopping on whether councils could opt out or not.
‘‘We had a presentation here and it was the worst presentation ever delivered by central government representatives,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t have trust and they have created that.’’
Just two councillors – Harry Duynhoven and Amanda Clinton-Gohdes – spoke against adopting the submission. Duynhoven wholeheartedly believed the reforms were needed while Clinton-Gohdes said she had concerns about the burden of cost water infrastructure would be for future generations.
The vote 13-2 in favour of submitting the council’s opposition.
Meanwhile, Chong’s motion to join 31 other district councils in the Communities For Local Democracy found a little more favour but ultimately failed to fly.