3waters - Asset theft or GST grab?

I and the Napier City Council have opposed the style and nature of the proposed/imposed 3waters reform from the outset.

Hawke's Bay took a collective proactive stand from the very beginning, consultants Morrison Low evaluated the state and opportunity in each of the four districts.  Identifying the cost of levels of service and sustainable future management of assets and improvements to networks in Hawke's Bay.

In the following Long Term Plan 2021-2031 development:
- each local authority increased their annual budget commitment into the future
- local authorities now understand the cost of delivering 3waters in their districts

These reforms will not just impact on urban water networks, large private and rural schemes may become part of the new centralised entities.  Regardless every water supplier will be incorporated and need to meet new water supply regulations, this will involve reporting and compliance.  

This new regulatory environment will grow into a new bureaucracy and we all know what feeds a bureaucracy the ability to send a bill for all these new fancy compliance, monitoring and assessment processes. In the rural context these are costs that previously did not exist.  Every new billing system and every future imposed bureaucratic cost will add to governments GST take.  

So is the 3waters reform about better water quality or the governments ability to find new ways to find and tap (pun intended) into new income streams and increase the GST income?


I'll say it as I see it, your view may differ and that is ok, so lets be respectful throughout this process.

So lets be nice about it. 

Regards and best wishes 

Nigel Simpson , Candidate for Mayor Napier City Council Elections 2022 

#IfYouCare #NapierIfYouCare #TheThingsYouDontKnowYouDontKnow #Transparancy

This blog is approved by Nigel Simpson, Napier New Zealand - website -  simpson-for-napier.co  

     

   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Group think

  Group think is empowered by other people’s apathy and strengthened by its own momentum.  The more the ‘in crowd’ convince themselves that they are right, the less they want to hear from others like employed managers or consultants who are experts in their field and thus power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  When I say others in this context, I include members of committees or working parties that are not in the ‘in crowd’ or as easily influenced or corruptible as others. You never really learn much from hearing yourself talk. George Clooney How many of you have been involved with a sports club that had historically functioned well, had great social membership, wins at competition, is achieving its goals and objectives, has a well-articulated strategy for new facilities and is going from strength to strength?   But then a small ‘cohesive’ click forms in the committee and others say they can’t be bothered, and they opt off the committee and s...
Read more

Long term plans

  Long term plans and a number of other documents that need to be joined up (like the District Plan, rates and other policies) set out the elected council's strategy. and guide the CEO ten years into the future, informing them of the anticipated shape and style of growth and levels of service and major expenditure.  This allows the CEO to design the Council organisation and recruit staff with the competencies and capabilities to meet those future needs.  Napier needs a mayor who will implement proper governance led strategy development and stop the flip-flops and short term meddling at operational level. If the Council chop and change short term expectations, in the long term plan it makes it impossible for the CEO to perform and frustrates management as they have to push and pull resources to suddenly meet the need for research, consultants, reporting, and juggling budgets to pay for activities that are out of sequence.   This causes unintended consequences; the thi...
Read more

Decision making and getting things done

  Decision making and getting things done should be easy when your organisation employs experts in their fields and your resources include some of the most experienced technical experts (consultants) in the country, right? But when your elected lay people (i.e. Mayor and Council) do not accept professional advice, guidance or professional opinion it becomes problematic and disheartening for staff. Absence of good clear S.M.A.R.T governance led strategy creates paralysis by analysis.  The absence of good leadership enables abrogation of decision making and the people our community has elected to make decisions decide to push it back to you 'say it Napier'. The amount of consultation this last council has done has cost a fortune in staff time and recourses, slowing down implementation and achievements.  Imagine how much more productive staff could be if once an activity is in the long term plan or annual plan they could get on with delivering that service or activity wi...
Read more