Earlier this month the Minister of Local Government and Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs announced more details of the replacement for Three Waters.
Most of the public attention was to how the locally controlled water entities would be financed, including borrowing through the Local Government Funding Agency in their own right.
But there was also a summary of changes approved by Cabinet to the drinking water quality regulation. The Water Services Authority (Taumata Arowai) is to get law changes that should have been in the Water Services Act from the start.
The changes are a Water Users Group wish-list. Many of them we said we would push for, in our very last email. We don’t claim the credit – that should go to the government. Though we have all along pressed for most of them, so have Federated Farmers, and some of the officials now working for the government.
<< To read the Government’s announcement on water service delivery, click here >>
<< To read the Minister of Local Government’s letter to Local Government leadership, click here >>
Below we explain the importance of some of these changes:
‘Ensuring Taumata Arowai considers the cost of compliance on suppliers when performing its functions’
This may seem blindingly obvious, but the painful fact is that it was left out, probably deliberately, from the law’s instructions to Taumata Arowai. They appeared to lack the power to run cost/benefit calculations in setting standards even if they wanted to. Many communities were being lumped with inflexible standards requiring gold-plated systems beyond what they wanted or could afford.
‘Reducing the regulatory burden on very small drinking water supplies by excluding ‘shared domestic suppliers’ serving 25 consumers or fewer from regulation’
The harsh water service regulations have been particular burdensome on small communities or systems run by selfless volunteers. The likely outcome was going to be exit of those made liable, with those served by small schemes being left with no one willing to keep them going. Now thousands of farm systems, and small holiday communities and others will be able to carry on.
‘Enabling Taumata Aorwai to proactively issue exemptions from certain regulatory requirements, where compliance with the Water Services Act is impractical, inefficient, unduly costly or burdensome’
Similar to ensuring appropriate costs to benefits in New Zealand’s water regulation, this is another common-sense change to ensure that regulatory requirements don’t do more harm than good. Why should a holiday community have to have a water supply fit for the town’s peak capacity of only few weeks each summer, and sit largely unused for the rest of the year? Regulation should be fit-for-purpose, and ensuring any regulations are first and foremost practical is a must.
‘Removing the requirement for Taumata Arowai and suppliers to give effect to Te Mana o te Wai’
This is really significant. No one could tell what Te Mana o te Wai would demand. We think it was expressly designed to camouflage soft corruption in water services, as iwi elites took pay-offs to either confirm that TMOW was satisfied, or to supervise works that were essentially expensive responses to superstition. It had nothing to do with health, safety or scientific quality standards. Coupled with the removal of Te Mana o te Wai requirements around wastewater decisions, this rejection of co-governance restores the needs of communities as the over-riding purpose. They should never have been subordinated to quasi-religious beliefs about the ‘life force’ of water.
Adults seem to be back at the helm of decision making on water use in New Zealand. The Water Users Group is glad to have been able to join with others to put water users’ needs above racist ideology.
When the Bill is released we will of course review it. There is plenty of room for slips between the reform cup and lip in legislation. People who have vested interest in the Three Waters scheme will fight these changes. They won’t down-tools, and neither will we.
Thank you for your continuing support.
Regards,
Stephen Franks
Board Member