Mayor reacts to Government’s Three Waters reset announcement

Grey District Mayor, Tania Gibson, reacts to Government’s Three Waters reset announcement.

Mayor Gibson has expressed her disappointment in the outcome of the announcement made by the Government this morning, on Three Waters reform.

“Today we listened to another announcement in what has become a long, expensive drawn-out reform, that chops and changes, with changing Ministers and constantly changing requirements. Our primary concerns around the loss of millions of dollars of assets without compensation, that generations of ratepayers have paid for, have still not been addressed,” Mayor Gibson said.

“The shareholding is still a sham with no ownership rights. With entities changing from four to ten, the four new recently appointed CEOs are now in limbo. The Government is diluting the scale efficiency which puts in doubt the delivery of the savings and therefore prices promised.”

“The disruption and uncertainty for councils and staff heading into our Long-Term planning cycle has been immense. There has been a huge extra workload imposed by the Department of Internal Affairs to provide information for the now delayed launch of these entities, which has created a barrier to working on the infrastructure we are trying to fix. With a new 2026 start date it feels more and more as if they are building the plane while flying it. The cost of the reform to date is in the millions and could have been channelled into infrastructure.”

“New legislation is going to be pushed through parliament in a hurry to give effect to these announcements, to beat an election cycle. Three Waters is still an election issue, and this tinkering hasn’t changed anything.”

ENDS

Grey District Council

Contact: Megan Bourke

03 769 8600 / GDC_communications@greydc.govt.nz