Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water

The Hon Rodney Hide announced his package of changes to the Local Government Act today. The self-styled Minister of Ratepayers must have been disappointed. His long trumpeted and nutty agenda for local government has been well and truly sidelined.

But you have to hand it to Hide. He’s always entertaining. On the final page of his background briefing, and unmentioned in the press release was a sting in the tail that appears to have come out of nowhere - it certainly wasn’t mentioned in Hide’s cabinet paper back in April.

The Government plans to loosen up the restrictions on the privatisation of municipal water supply. They intend to more than double the maximum time period councils can contract with private sector water companies, from 15 to 35 years. They want to lift the prohibition on private companies owning water infrastructure during the contract period. And they want to repeal the requirement for councils to retain control over the management of water services that have been contracted out.

It is all designed to encourage contracting out, and public-private partnerships. It is the privatisation of our water supply. Something Hide and the National Party denied was on their agenda as recently as August 19 when they voted down my private member’s bill to protect Auckland’s assets from privatisation under the super city.

Remember, 89% of Aucklanders said they were opposed to any privatisation of our water supply.

Meanwhile Hide’s ambition to cap rates, impose compulsory referenda on councils for all significant decisions, and get rid of the requirement on councils to consult communities on things like privatisation, all appear to have been dropped. And given the overwhelmingly negative public reaction since his agenda was floated back in April I am not surprised.

All that is left is a watered down and muddled version of his core services idea that leaves more questions unanswered than answered:

Encourage councils to focus on core services by amending section 12 of the Local Government Act (the power of general competence) to require councils to have particular regard to the importance of:

• infrastructural services
• solid waste services
• hazard and disaster management
• libraries, recreation, culture and heritage services
• the performance of regulatory responsibilities and statutory duties.

Well, what about public transport? Water? Pensioner housing? Innovative social programmes like COMET in Manukau City that Hide was so impressed by? Cleaning up beaches and streams? Economic development like Waitakere’s New Lynn project? The Tamaki Transformation? The Auckland waterfront?