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Posts Tagged ‘water’

Hide hoses down Auckland water fears

Posted by Phil Twyford on August 31st, 2010

Local Government Minister Rodney Hide has intervened in the Auckland mayoral and council elections with a carefully contrived announcement on water rates.

You would think water rates would be decided and announced by the new Auckland Council. The election is, after all, only six weeks away. And the water company, is after all, owned  by the Council.

But no, Mr Hide yesterday trumpeted a new water rate that will see all Auckland houses pay the same tariff of $1.30 per 1000 litres of water.

Asked why he was announcing it now, he replied because Aucklanders have been “anxious about water” charges.

Why have they been anxious about water charges? Because the Government wants to roll out volumetric or user pays pricing for waste-water expected to result in hefty increases for most Aucklanders. And because the centre-right Citizens and Ratepayers ticket has the same policy. And the C&R mayoral candidate Mr Banks has been taking heat on this issue.

Mr Hide was happy to announce the new rate on water piped to the home, but he was keeping quiet on the new rate for waste water which is the one that is likely to go up significantly if it gets the full user-pays treatment. If he was going to announce one I don’t see why he couldn’t have announced both, because Watercare has had a full year to do the calculations on both.

The farsighted Mr Hide has legislated that waste water charges, and general rates, won’t be going up until mid-2012 which just happens to be after the mayoral and council elections, and after next year’s general election.

By the time the new waste water and general rates kick in, the Auckland Council will have been in place for 18 months and Mr Hide will be able to wash his hands of any responsibility. He is hoping the Council will have to carry the can for the structures and budgets he put in place 18 months before.

If in 2012 the waste water charges and general rates do go up, as most Aucklanders believe they will, with any luck we won’t have to listen to Mr Hide blaming the Auckland Council.  He will be long gone by then.

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Filed under: Auckland, local government, water
18 Comments

Will the Minister explain?

Posted by Phil Twyford on April 7th, 2010

Marty G at The Standard helpfully points out a $2295 -a-head conference on “Local Government Asset Management” where Local Government Minister Rodney Hide is the keynote speaker.  Later in the morning after Mr Hide’s speech is a session for which the blurb reads:

Privatisation is a contentious issue due to amendments in the Local Government Act 2002. Water will be the first area of local government which will move towards privatisation but what about the rest of local government controlled functions? What will the impacts be on asset management if more functions become commercialised in the future?

Hang on, I thought there was no privatisation agenda for local government?

That’s right, I remember.

The Government’s third super city bill repeals the requirement for a majority in a binding referendum before the Ports of Auckland can be sold.

The move to transfer 75% of the super city assets into council owned companies will exempt them from the Local Government Act requirement for public consultation before strategic assets can be sold.  So after the two year moratorium designed to ensure no asset sales before the 2011 election, a future Auckland Council could flog off the airport and ports shares without consulting the public.

The Government’s announced plans to free up the safeguards against privatisation of water will allow private ownership of water infrastructure for up to 35 years.

Maybe the Minister will use his conference speech to explain whether these moves amount to a privatisation agenda?

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government, privatisation
15 Comments

What privatisation agenda? (Ports of Auckland)

Posted by Phil Twyford on December 9th, 2009

So there is no privatisation agenda?

The latest piece of evidence for the “non-privatisation agenda”  is the Government’s decision to repeal the law that would prevent the privatisation of the Ports of Auckland unless a majority of Aucklanders voted to approve the sale. This was confirmed by Local Government Minister Rodney Hide in question time today.

(Strange that Hide didn’t announce this last Friday when he unveiled the content of the third super city bill.)

Add that to the decision to allow our water dams, pipelines and treatment stations to be owned by the private sector for 35 years. And to the decision to repeal the requirement that councils consult the community before contracting out public services to the private sector.

It is starting to walk and quack like a duck privatisation agenda as far as I can tell.

Aucklanders don’t want the ports flogged off. We fought off privatisation in the 1990s and we’ll fight it again now under this National-ACT Government. The most recent poll showed 78% oppose privatisation of the ports. That is why Hide wants to clear the decks of any requirement to give Aucklanders a say in a referendum.

It is also why they are bringing in a three year moratorium on the sale of Auckland Council assets.  But let’s be clear, this moratorium is cynically designed to pave the way for privatisation after the 2011 general election.

Hide has been busy advocating mandatory referenda for rate capping, but can’t stomach the idea of a referendum on asset sales.

Essentially he has been lying to Aucklanders all year. He has consistently rubbished the idea that there is a privatisation agenda for Auckland’s assets. Meanwhile he is setting about dismantling the legal protections that give Aucklanders a say before their precious assets are sold off, and opening up water infrastructure to private ownership.

Rodney Hide is not fit to be Local Government Minister.  But at least he is honest about his intentions. His gutless coalition colleagues on the National benches are too timid to campaign on a privatisation platform, but they vote for the same odious policies.

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Filed under: Auckland, act party, local government, privatisation
12 Comments

Rivers of shame

Posted by Brendon Burns on November 26th, 2009

Dompost lead today says it all – Our River of Shame – reporting the Manawatu  tops a new pollution measure of 300 rivers and streams across the Western world. And then on page 3, a re-report of the Health Ministry’s annual survey I’ve previously highlighted, showing one in six Kiwis are drinking substandard or untested water.

Tonight the Dunsandel (Canterbury) community is meeting to discuss the presence of the sometimes fatal e-coli bug in its water supply. I’ll correct this if I am wrong but dairying is the likely cause.

Yet there we were yesterday, under urgency, seeing Parliament rush-pass an ETS which will subsidise and effectively encourage polluters to continue the practices which have already undermined water quality.

It’s not just the Manawatu. An MFE report, using other measures, shows it to be only be our fifth-worst major river for water quality.

Such poor water quality puts at risk our very economic base.

Especially in tough times, European and other farmers and their politicians will be looking for reasons to thwart our exports into their home markets. Dairying and tourism are our two biggest export earners. Each worth nearly $10b a year. Dairying shamelessly uses the clean green image in its marketing, even if the state of the Manawatu and other rivers shows we are a long way short.

There does seem to be some agreement here about getting things right. Federated Farmers president Don Nicholson says in the latest Feds magazine that sustainability is the competitive advantage of New Zealand farmers “and we must put up and stand by standards that go beyond the minimum.”

But try telling farmers to cut nitrate use (equals production) – which lies at the heart of what’s happening in the Manawatu. I don’t want to see New Zealand lose export dollars. Dairying contributes hugely to our economy – and its not the only polluter – but it is the elephant in the room. And we cannot ignore some of the awful results for river and stream quality coming from dairy-dominated land use. Even if we do, the rest of the world will not.

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Filed under: economy, environment, water
14 Comments

Three strikes and you are out

Posted by Phil Twyford on November 9th, 2009

I didn’t intend to post three times in a row about the Government’s privatisation agenda for local government. But hey, they keep giving me new material.

The latest is a Cabinet decision in just-released papers to set the new $5 billion Auckland water company up for privatisation in 2015.

All year the Government has been denying they have any privatisation plans for local government. National and ACT MPs voted down my private member’s bill to protect Auckland’s assets from privatisation under the super city. Hide said the issue was a distraction and a ‘pretend debate’.

But Aucklanders have been deeply uneasy all year that Rodney Hide, the Nats and their surrogate Cits and Rats local body organisation is lining up the super city’s assets to be sold off, and council services contracted out.

Well, here is why those fears were well grounded:

1. Two weeks ago Hide announced the Government would amend the Local Government Act to encourage public-private partnerships and allow private ownership of our water infrastructure for periods of up to 35 years.

2. At the same time Cabinet decided to repeal s 88 of the Local Government Act which requires Councils to consult the public before privatising or contracting out council services. And then, drum roll…

3. On 19 October Cabinet decided to over-ride the provisions of the Local Government Act restricting private involvement in the water system, and allow the new Auckland Council from 2015 to “determine the governance arrangements and asset ownership for the delivery of water services, rather than fixing Watercare’s form in legislation”.

If it looks, smells and sounds like a privatisation agenda, I reckon it is one.

Stranger still though, the Minister is now apparently saying that the 26 October Cabinet decision to amend the Local Government Act to loosen up the restrictions on public-private partnerships in  water services overrides the 19 October decision to allow full privatisation of the Auckland water company. Which is very bizarre.

Rodney Hide has been going around the country slagging his ministerial colleagues as distracted and inattentive. But if the report is true he cannot manage his own portfolio to avoid the Cabinet making inconsistent decisions in consecutive weeks. What a shambles.

More to the point, the 19 October decision to open the door to full privatisation of the Auckland water company is clear evidence once and for all that this Government has a privatisation agenda when it comes to local government and the super city in particular. Mr Key has some explaining to do.

For more see Bernard Orsman and Brian Rudman in the Herald.

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Filed under: Auckland, local government, privatisation
15 Comments

What privatisation agenda?

Posted by Phil Twyford on November 8th, 2009

Further to yesterday’s post on Rodney Hide’s fitness (or otherwise) to be Minister of Local Government, there is a new development in the Government’s unfolding privatisation agenda.

Now John Key’s happy centrist government wants to repeal the provision in the Local Government Act which requires councils to consult communities before embarking on privatisation or contracting out of public services.

When Mr Hide announced his proposed changes to the Local Government Act two weeks ago, this little gem was mysteriously absent from the press release or backgrounder, or any of the Ministers’ public statements. But it is lurking in the Cabinet Minute listed along with six other “Minor legislative amendments”.

Apparently, according to the Cabinet Minute section 88 of the Local Government Act which requires public consultation before assets or services can be privatised or contracted out “is biased against the use of the private sector to deliver council services”.

Put this alongside the announced intention to loosen the controls on privatisation of water, allowing private companies to own our water infrastructure for up to 35 years at a stretch, and the Government’s repeated denials that they have any intention to privatise assets looks more and more like a joke. A bad joke. And with the super city looming, a joke on Aucklanders.

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Filed under: local government, privatisation
18 Comments

Is this man fit to be Minister of Local Government?

Posted by Phil Twyford on November 7th, 2009

hide-smirk-revForget the shonky fundraising practices where he charged $45 to hear him talk about his ministerial portfolio.

Don’t worry about the fact that the one time perk buster spent $60,000 of taxpayers’ money on a round the world trip with his girlfriend, timed to coincide with her brother’s wedding, touring international capitals to talk about the super city and lecture right wing think tanks.

So what that the man who made his career campaigning against MPs’ travel privileges used those same privileges to take his girlfriend to Hawaii, costing $10,000, and quietly paid it back last week, not mentioning it in all the public debate about his round the world trip.

Never mind about his blow-hard bragging to ACT party members that the prime minister “doesn’t do anything” and was highly regarded, while “ACT did everything and we are hated” and that he was amazed at how much he could get through Cabinet, because “you turn up with your papers” and “they are too busy with their own stuff they’re not bothered”.

These are matters for Mr Hide and the voters of Epsom to consider.

What makes me question his fitness to be Minister of Local Government is the barking mad right wing agenda he is pursuing.

With the blessing of John Key’s Cabinet Hide is loosening the controls on the privatisation of water to encourage ‘build, own, operate and transfer’ (BOOT) schemes which will allow private companies to own our water infrastructure for up to 35 years at a time.

This from a Government that has denied they had any plans for privatisation of local government assets, and voted down my anti-asset sales member’s bill because they said there was no threat of privatisation. They said Labour was scaremongering.

Eighty eight percent of Aucklanders are opposed to any privatisation of council water systems. To proceed with this policy after repeated denials of any privatisation plans is dishonest and undemocratic.

But wait there is more. He actually recommended to Cabinet the removal of nearly all controls on the privatisation on water. Never mind BOOT schemes, Hide wanted to open the door to wholesale disposal of water systems to the private sector. And the repeal of obligations on councils to retain control of pricing, management and policy on delivery of water services. He recommended this against the advice of Local Government NZ, and the Ministry of Health.  Barking mad.

So should we be grateful Key’s Cabinet  didn’t go all the way with Hide’s privatisation agenda and opted for extending private ownership of water assets to 35 years?  Should we be grateful for a disaster just because we averted a catastrophe?

Hide is, I believe, unfit to be Minister of Local Government on the basis of his extremist ideology. But you can’t blame him for disregarding the views of the huge majority of New Zealanders. The man only needs 5% of the vote to keep a grip on the baubles of office.

As Prime Minister, John Key is supposed to govern in the interests of all New Zealanders.  It is Key who allowed Hide’s resignation threat to determine the Government’s decision on Maori seats in the super city.  It is Key’s Government that has imposed their flawed and undemocratic super city on Aucklanders. It is Key’s Cabinet who signed off the plans for water privatisation. He is responsible.

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Filed under: Auckland, local government, privatisation, water
32 Comments

Crying over spilt milk

Posted by Sue Moroney on September 19th, 2009

Talley’s-owned Open Country Cheese was caught pouring sludge from its factory in Waharoa directly into the Waitoa River this morning because it insists on using scab labour to keep production going instead of paying standard industry wages and giving some job security to its staff.

The use of untrained staff during this dispute has now polluted the river and we’ll all have to pay through our rates in the Waikato to have it cleaned up.

Apparently, sludge which is normally collected by trucks and spread on farms, has poured into the river instead.

That river runs down the back of the dairy farm I was brought up on. I just hope the environmental damage is reversible.

I certainly know that OCCs harsh stance against its staff can be reversed, so I’ll be heading over to join the picket line tomorrow.

Now OCC has proven to be irresponsible on two fronts – firstly they undermine the industry with sub-standard wages and conditions and now they think they can pollute the waterways.

That’s a disgrace.

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Filed under: Manufacturing, conservation, environment, jobs, labour, union, waikato, water
27 Comments

Win/win water strategy

Posted by Brendon Burns on September 3rd, 2009

The Canterbury Water Management Strategy released today presents the potential of a win/win way forward.

It has a balanced approach to environmental and economic outcomes. I take my hat off to strategy chair Bede O’Malley and the other members of the strategy team. They have worked collaboratively and delivered a visionary statement which acknowledges that past practices have been damaging and the first thing that must happen is to begin to restore the quality of Canterbury’s waterways.  Any further applications for harnessing water deserve the same collaborative, community-driven approach.

Just yesterday I visited the Opuha Dam in South Canterbury which is a good example of a community-initiated water scheme that almost everyone supports and benefits from.

That said, we would want to ensure that the strategy’s ten proposed new water zones all work to regional criteria, have broad community and stakeholder representation and meet or exceed national minimum water and environmental standards.

We do need to be wary of having too many layers of administration. Not only would there be 10 zone committees, a Regional Water Management Committee and Ecan – there is also the Government’s proposal for an Environmental Protection Agency.

But these are details to be worked through. It’s great that Canterbury stakeholders from environmental groups, the Feds, councils and others have developed a strategy with broad support which provides the capacity to improve our waterways and deliver sustainable growth into our future.

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Filed under: environment, water
8 Comments

A small victory on the water?

Posted by Brendon Burns on September 2nd, 2009

Was there sufficient small community backlash to overturn Bill English and Treasury imposing an immediate  hard line on gutting the scheme to help small communities make their drinking water safe? 

Yesterday Tony Ryall announced that he is reviewing the subsidies Labour put in place, though the 71 communities already being considered for funds would now be assessed under existing criteria. Answers to written questions from me a couple of weeks ago in fact affirmed that those existing communities would have to await the outcome of the review before any funding. 

 Many  marae are among the current applicants – and will be among the communities most affected by the looming cuts. My information is that Treasury is suggesting a $1000 per capita maximum. If a marae has 50 permanent residents, they might from next year get somewhere around $50,000 - often not enough to make a water supply meet World Health Organisation minimums.  At the moment, if it is a low-decile marae or small community, subsidies of up to 95 percent of the cost can be paid by Government.  Councils with mid-decile communities who were banking on the scheme to help meet the cost will be most affected. In the House last week, Ryall tried to suggest “millionaire” communities were getting funds. They might get a 5 percent contribution but the scheme is already weighted to help low-mid decile communities. 

The Ministry of Health is clearly worried by the clout both English and Hide are exercising – Hide describes the new WHO minimum standards as “ridiculous.”  There have been four Ministry of Health reports written since May on the public health risks posed by the review of funding. When its added to the current three year moratorium on meeting the WHO minimums, Ryall is playing a dangerous game. He maintains that drinking water standards are a local government responsibility – but then pushes out the boundaries and cuts the support. When a serious outbreak of water-borne illness inevitably occurs – and New Zealand already has some of the highest case numbers in the developed world -  he will not be able to wash his hands of it.

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Filed under: M?ori, Uncategorized, infrastructure, local government, water
9 Comments