Three waters roadshow stopping in Tauranga

The government's three waters reforms passed its first reading in Parliament earlier this month.

New Zealand Taxpayers' Union will be in Tauranga tonight as part of its ‘Stop the Three Waters' roadshow.

The Union's Jordan Williams will host a town-hall style meeting at Classic Flyers from 7.30pm.

Williams says guest speakers of the night will be Simon Watts, National Party Local Government Spokesman and Sam Uffindell, MP for Tauranga.

'We're also in Whakatane on Sunday, and we head to Rotorua on June 29.

'Over the past three weeks, we've seen incredible support across the South Island and the Lower North Island.

'Big turnouts at street corner meetings and town hall events have made it clear to local Government MPs that pushing through Three Waters will result in serious political damage.

'There's a lot of work being done behind the scenes to make this happen, but the whole team are loving being out on the road, meeting more of our supporters around the country, and working to Stop Three Waters.”

People can check the full itinerary at www.3WatersRoadshow.nz

The government's three waters reforms passed its first reading in Parliament earlier this month.

New Zealand's drinking, waste and storm water management will go into the hands of four new council-owned water entities, instead of 67 councils.

The Water Services Entities Bill is the piece of legislation that establishes the four entities.

At least one more bill will follow, transferring the assets and setting up consumer protections.

"We're taking decisive action to ensure all communities have safe, affordable, and sustainable drinking water services, along with stormwater and wastewater networks that meet our environmental and cultural expectations," says Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta.

She acknowledges there has been fierce opposition to the reforms.

"It is unsurprising, given the scale of these reforms, that they have generated much debate. There have been requests to stop the reforms, and go back to the drawing board. But we have been talking about these problems for the past twenty years. It's time for action."

Councils are to be divided among four regional water service entities, and each get one share in their entity for every 50,000 people in their area, with a minimum of one share for every territorial authority.

The first reading passed with 77 votes in favour, and 42 votes opposed.

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3 comments

export to China for free

Posted on 27-06-2022 11:25 | By 2up

Lets just keep the system we have where councils give our water to companies so they can make huge profits exporting to China. Why would we ever think of changing that?


@2up

Posted on 29-06-2022 11:27 | By Kancho

It's not the issue at all. We actually have plenty of water falls on us frequently and most goes out to sea unused . But as a country we have a poor productivity then selling anything overseas adds to jobs and income for the be country , just like the dairy , meat, timber, fish etc etc. All gives employment and overseas income so if not selling and exporting less income to spend means less or take even it's tax on everything. We have high costs in NZ for most everything and a lot of dependency, If we don't sell we don't live. Simple really most everybody sells something for an income


facts

Posted on 18-07-2022 16:36 | By joan dugmore

nania mahuta is on the wrong trail here, we can go back to roof water and septic tanks which alot of people have, we all had govt funding in the beginning for sewrage in our communities, and pai the loan all back , if their is a fault why not refund the problem , we need to have proof of faults


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