REJECT DRAFT ANNUAL PLAN - DUMP METROWATER NOW!

Submissions to the Auckland City Council Draft Annual Plan opened on April 26 and close on May 25. Verbal submissions will be from June 8-11.

Everyone in Auckland City should have received a summary copy of the Draft Annual Plan and submission forms with their April 26 City Scene.
Phone the Council Submission Hotline 379 2037 if you didn't.

The abolition of METROWATER is not in the Draft Annual Plan. Our campaign to scrap commercialised water in Auckland depends entirely on Auckland City Councillors voting it out of existence.

That means between now and June 30, so much pressure has to go on Councillors, especially those elected to abolish METROWATER, that they can no longer ignore the wishes of the majority who put them there to do this.

The Draft Annual Plan is only a draft. We must reject it. Council's Democracy Services department confirms that submissions can be made on issues not in the Draft Annual Plan. On June 30 a Special Council Meeting will make the final decision on the Annual Plan.

Sign a pro-forma submission and phone us to help collect more signatures at shopping malls, supermarkets.
Boxes of signatures will go to the Council as written submissions.
Pro-formas dated for return by May 30, now need to be retrieved and returned to us by May 22 at the latest. Our postal address is now Water Pressure Group, Box 10046, Dominion Road, Mt Eden, Auckland or phone our numbers 820 0950, 828 4517, 828 0238, 629 2865.

Make a written and a verbal submission. Join others to tell Councillors what you think of them and METROWATER LTD.

Phone, fax, write and e-mail Councillors - don't let them ignore us.

Spread the boycott of wastewater charges -  and go on standing firm.

Anyone can make submissions -  not just Auckland City residents and ratepayers.
The Business Roundtable makes self-interested submissions on behalf of big business every year. Cross out 'residing in Auckland City' (if you don't) to sign our pro-forma, and urge others to put in submissions too.
 

INVITE TO OUR WEEKLY MEETINGS
The Water Pressure Group meets every Wednesday - 7.30pm - at the Fickling Centre - under Mt Roskill Public Library - between Three Kings Shopping Mall and the Metrowater Building, cnr Mt Eden and Mt Albert Rds, Three Kings. These are organising meetings of usually 40 to 70 people which update us on what's happening and what work is needed. All supporters are not only welcome but urged to to attend if you can. If you require transport we may be able to arrange a lift for you with one of our regular attenders, please phone us.
 

THREATS OF 40% RATES HIKE IF METROWATER LTD ABOLISHED ?

Water Pressure Group members who have done their sums on what their rates will be, in quality inner-city, as in much lower-value houses, if Metrowater Ltd and systems charges are abolished and wastewater charges go back under rates -  found they'd be paying less.

Residential rates are due to rise by 20%, commercial rates by 17%.

The worst figure proposed by Councillors, with water services under Council control as a SABU, was 40% total rates increase.

Don't take our word for it, do your own sums!

To work it out:
Take last year's (1998/99) rates, add 40%.
Add last year's rates + wastewater charges you actually paid for whole 1998/99 year.
Compare the two.
eg 1998/99 Rates $1000.00 + 40% = $400.00 = $1400.
     1998/99 Rates $1000 + 1998/99 wastewater charges $650.00 = $1650.
     1999/2000 less $250 if Metrowater Ltd abolished.

And that's just the year to come, with no more profits and tax on top when Metrowater Ltd ceases to exist.
 
 
 

HOW SMALL CAN YOU GET?

This is the question we ask pro-Metrowater Councillors Hay, Ryan, Olsen, Raffills, and others, and Metrowater's Sharon Buckland. All are very fond of asserting that small water-users are better off under Metrowater.

Water Pressure Group member Stan Purvis points out that enormous efforts and sacrifices to conserve water, especially by older people living alone, not only don't reduce the bills much because of systems charges they can't affect, but create totally unacceptable living conditions we should not let our community be forced into.

The threats to health from water-borne diseases, whether in small households or large families, must concern us all. Is water conservation when your water is cut off because, no matter what you do, you can't afford to pay for it?

Stan passes this on from a homehelp nurse aid (name withheld):
There are cases where elderly people, living alone in self-contained retirement units (some Council or State-owned) because of their anguish over water costs, go by one day, two days, even more, without flushing their toilets.

Consequently when the caregiver arrives on her days once or twice a week, there is this degrading, nauseating smell permeating the house and the person of the house.

This is not untidy living, it is fear of not being able to make ends meet financially.
This can only deprive these elderly pioneers in our city of  their god-given, life-supporting dignity.
 

BEWARE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT'S REVIEWS

1) Longterm Review of Water and Wastewater
Launched Nov 1998, for the whole of New Zealand. It is designed to take 18 months to two years from that date, so is unlikely to be completed before May to December 2000. Local authorities have already commented to Government. A public discussion document is said to be due in May 1999. This Review is one of Bruce Hucker's excuses for not abolishing Metrowater, but its terms of reference do not mention privatisation.
2) Review of the Rating Powers Act
3) Local Government Funding Powers Review
All three reviews aim to restructure / re-regulate the micro-economic framework or infrastructure, at local authority level.
The electricity and roading 'reforms' are cited as equivalent exercises. The potential for efficient further impoverishment of the majority of the population, in the name of 'transparency' and 'accountability', is the subject of these studies.

The Water and Wastewater Review repeatedly states that it is not about privatisation, "Government will not require communities to sell water assets", and that their ownership will still be up to local communities to decide.

While doubting this and Minister Max Bradford's identical assertions in media statements might be wise, it appears to be consistent with the other
Reviews which plan to give local authorities a range of powers, including funding powers, to do the Government's dirty work for it.

The threat of privatisation should increase the urgency to dis-establish Auckland's water LATE, for protection of our water services, not be used to
justify ''delay'.

The Rating Powers Act Review and Local Government Funding Powers Review between them could equip Councils to turn rates into a virtual poll tax, or a flat tax on every household regardless of ability to pay, and could also give all Councils the power to charge users pays for wastewater without
having to form a water LATE.

All aimed at further shifting of costs from rich to poor and middle income earners, with user pays on everything and mandatory profiteering on vital community services.

Ring your MP and ask them how to obtain your free copy of these Reviews. Ask your Councillors and your ARC representatives for a copy of the
Council's and ARC's submissions already made to the Government on each Review.
 

METROWATER PRICES GOING UP AGAIN

Metrowater has announced a 16% rise in wastewater charges, plus 8% rise in water charges. At the Auckland City Council meeting on April 15, however,
Councillor and Metrowater Director Jon Olsen (Auckland Now party) said Metrowater charges will increase 24% over the next two years.

But this too is far short of the over 45% increase in wastewater charges alone - in this 1999/2000 year ahead - reported in the Council "Review of
Options for Wastewater Charging" which was on that meeting agenda.

The calculations in the Review were entirely based on Metrowater's requirement for $75.52 million to be collected for wastewater this year (last year $52 million).

Asked in May about the $75.52 million, a Metrowater employee laughed and said "Oh no, someone just thought that up, it was off the top of their head
at a meeting, no-one knows how much we're going to charge yet." She insisted they'd been told this figure was an invention, even when informed
it was the basis of an 89-page Review by Council officers.

With an increase of this size, wastewater charges will have gone up five-fold in the two years since Metrowater was established - up from
$15 million in 1996-1997 in that last year under Council rates.
Who are we to disbelieve Metrowater makes it up as they go along?

Last year Metrowater made $6.9 million profit. This year they want up to $9.9 million profit, next year $14.4 million.  Tax is payable on that from April 1, 1999. Watercare too is a LATE, and pays tax on profit from now on. GST has always been added.

Fixing the neglected pipes and infrastructure? Time will tell. What is obvious is that right now our commercialised water services are being dressed up in pretty profits - at huge cost to us and our community -  for the transnational water market.
 
 

WHO OWNS THE METER?

A Water Pressure Group member has receipts and Council notices from 1993, when he paid $169 (plus $33 extra to pay by instalments), for "part cost of meter installation".
The Council claims it sold the meters to Metrowater on its establishment.This question remains unresolved.
 
 

* STOP PRESS * STOP PRESS * STOP PRESS* STOP PRESS* STOP PRESS *

As we publish, 17% rise overall, water up 7.5%, wastewater up 24%, average annual bill will rise from $620 to $726. Did Metrowater get it wrong with its announced 16% & 8% ? Or is this on top of that? The Council must approve METROWATER'S Annual Statement of Corporate Intent these rises are in. We say: Don't. Abolish the voracious beast.
 

TELL COUNCILLORS: METROWATER MUST GO, VOTE TO DUMP IT NOW!

MOVED:  That Auckland City Holdings Ltd (ACHL) be liquidated and that Metrowater Ltd be abolished as a commercialised water Local AuthorityTrading        Enterprise (LATE) and that water services be re-integrated back into Auckland City Council as a non-profit Stand Alone Business Unit (SABU) on
1 July 1999.

 Further, that water and wastewater systems charges be abolished with wastewater charges paid for from rates on the basis of ability to pay and
 that the amount going into wastewater be indicated on rates bills to ensure accountable management of our resources.

This is the Water Pressure Group motion that two City Vision councillors, Jan Welch and Maire Leadbeater, agreed on April 25 to move and second at
the first available Council meeting. This apparent breakthrough was the result of intense pressure put on Jan Welch by constituents and Water Pressure Group members after our Councillor contact leaflets came out. Maire Leadbeater is the sole totally reliable Councillor opposed to Metrowater.

The Motion's wording faithfully reflected City Vision and Water Pressure Group policy. But on April 28, Jan Welch told us she would be "unable" to move it,
1) She would need seven signatures to change Council policy, 2) 1 July 1999 was impossible, 3) She was unhappy we'd made a media release on it.

Spurious reasons. Last June Council were able to consider a motion to scrap Metrowater on July 1, 1998. No Water Pressure Group press release went out in April 1999 when Bill Christian agreed to move for Metrowater to be abolished, only to renege on this within days, when his was one of seven signatures appended to Bruce Hucker's April 15 compromise motion (never voted on), which called for the continued existence of Metrowater Ltd with wastewater bulkfunded under rates from October 1, 1999, and no vote on its reintegration as a SABU until Feb 2000.

The seven signatures came from City Vision's Kay McKelvie, Jan Welch, Richard Northey, Penny Sefuiva, Vern Walsh, and Independent Faye Storer as well as Independent Bill Christian. Welch's failure to get this support for abolishing Metrowater shows City Vision's arrogant determination not to carry out its election promises and pledges.

Why ?

Bruce Hucker, leader of the City Vision team, re-voted this month as Deputy Mayor after 6-month's temporary tenure, and other City Vision Councillors,
have produced a succession of 'reasons' why Metrowater must stay. First: scrapping Metrowater  would be "irresponsible" because of the cost of
re-establishing it if the Water/Wastewater Review made privatisation compulsory (see article Beware Central Government's Reviews). Later: a $2 million price to dump Metrowater was called too expensive. And: we have an MMP (ie compromise) situation on the Council.

Then there was: wait and see till after the General Election. Then: Metrowater's Tariff Review is not completed yet. And, we heard of fears within Alliance
and Labour that if rates went 'up' because wastewater charges went back under rates with Metrowater abolished, people might assume their Coalition Government would raise taxes. And all along the constant refrain: we don't have the numbers. Not even their own seven City Vision signatures supposedly, except for motions to keep Metrowater going.

We elected 11 Councillors out of 20, with a record of opposing Metrowater on Council, or an election policy, or pledge to Water Pressure Group, to dump Metrowater Ltd. Seven City Vision, three Independents, one C&R.

When Hucker moved at the Council Meeting on Feb 25 for a report on the effects of returning wastewater to rates without abolishing Metrowater, Metrowater opponents, Gray Bartlett and Juliet Yates, voted with pro-Metrowater Councillors on April 15 (11 - 9) for an outcome Hucker's Review created, minimal rates remission for under $7400 income earners, with the Government's $200 subsidy under the Rates Rebate Act topped up $100 from rates by the Council, and water and wastewater charges counted as 'rates'  for the purpose.
With this 'Option 6' from Hucker's Wastewater Options Review adopted, no vote was possible and none took place on Hucker's two-stage proposal for Metrowater's continuation, tabled next and last on the agenda.

Gray Bartlett, and Bill Christian as well, must be held to their election promises, and C & R Councillor Juliet Yates must be persuaded back into opposition.

However, since that April 15 Council Meeting, which Water Pressure Group members attended throughout, Bruce Hucker and other City Vision Councillors, along with the Mayor, Christine Fletcher, and backed up repeatedly by the news media, have been claiming that a vote and/or a full discussion on Metrowater's abolition took place that night, with City Vision losing 9 - 11. On the contrary, no motion to dump Metrowater on July 1, 1999 has been tabled since last October's elections, and there has been no vote.

Not only that, at a meeting of the Finance and Property Committee attended by all Councillors on April 13, Hucker himself had moved for Council officers to find the "best method" of bringing in this same 'Option 6' rates remission from Item 24: 'Review of Wastewater Charging Options', utilising a different agenda heading under 'Rating Policy Options'.
Hucker's motion then was lost 9 - 11, despite Councillor Harland voting for it. A motion by Jon Olsen, identical to Hucker's, except for the words "through a Council contribution", was then passed without division. And lo and behold, the Council officers' "best method" (consistent with their advice in that Review), turned out two days later to be that moved unsuccessfully by Hucker: achieving this extra 'targeted' subsidy of Metrowater's user pays charges from general rates.

Council-owned public swimming pools, under private contracted management, have also been beneficiaries of this Council-decreed propping-up by general ratepayers, to save them from impossibly high water charges - created and sustained by Councillors' failure to abolish Metrowater Ltd and its profits.

But fancy footwork or not, it is to the anti-Metrowater bloc of City Vision (having never ceased to rely on the one solid Councillor among them, Maire Leadbeater), that we must look for action, in the firm expectation that they must carry out the promises that got them elected.

No more excuses: Metrowater must go. Tell your Councillors to vote to dump it now !
 

WASTEWATER BOYCOTT - DON'T ACCEPT METROWATER'S THREATS

 1) When you begin boycotting Metrowater's wastewater bill by paying only the water portion of the bill, send Metrowater the letter in our leaflet or
write your own. This is to notify Metrowater that you are in dispute with them, that you have paid for your water and expect your water supply to
continue unrestricted until your dispute over wastewater charges is resolved to your satisfaction.

2) If the meter is on your side of the fence, take out a trespass order against Metrowater Ltd and its agents, to prevent them coming onto your
property to tamper with your water. Call the police to enforce your trespass order if necessary.

3) Write them a letter or another letter -  every time they threaten you in writing. You keep a copy, they have to reply. If you phone them instead, insist that they confirm in writing what they have told you. Their letters will inspire and enrage you! They will never respond adequately to your objections to their
charges or to Metrowater's existence, and will often make ludicrous claims about Metrowater's popularity and the 'fairness' of their charges.

4)  Repeat each time you write that you are in dispute with them, and demand that they acknowledge your dispute. State and re-state all the reasons why you are in dispute with them - from political or philosophical objections, to the way their charges are structured - to your own circumstances and the actual effects of Metrowater's charges on your household and community.

 

Metrowater are a commercial company - don't we know it - so your dispute with them is a civil dispute and Council bylaws do not apply. While you are in dispute the status quo - the water supply you have paid for - should remain.

5) Quote also two other wastewater disputes. No-one has been given a hearing on this in the Disputes Tribunal (small claims court) since Metrowater applied last December for a High Court injunction to prevent the Disputes Tribunal hearing Water Pressure Group member Jim Gladwin's wastewater dispute. The High Court case is not until the week of June 21. The judge has ordered Metrowater to leave Jim's water alone, under threat of contempt of court, until a legal decision on use of the Disputes Tribunal is finalised. Jim had publicly both unrestricted and reconnected his own water, between August and December 1998. In February 1999, Water Pressure Group member Rose Hollins, who never went to the Disputes Tribunal, got Metrowater to agree that her wastewater dispute was similar to Jim's and they undertook not to touch her water also before the High Court case. The Water Pressure Group has tried to publicise this.

Metrowater are pretending they did not create this precedent, so remind them:

Everyone's dispute is as similar:
1/ Disputing on principle the method of charging for wastewater imposed by  the establishment of Metrowater  AND
2/ Paying for water and disputing wastewater charges, even though wastewater bills (in Rose Hollins case) had previously been paid.

Ask your neighbours and Water Pressure Group for help. Don't get scared, get angry.
 
 

Roger Kerr, Executive Director of the NZ Business Roundtable, in a speech,"Water Reform Imperatives", on March 8, 1999:

"In my view corporatisation of major urban water and wastewater businesses would deliver substantial benefits. Metrowater's experience as a corporatised entity confirms this, as does overseas experience. Privatisation would maintain these benefits and yield additional gains."

Who has benefited from Metrowater?

Apart from large business water-users which negotiate low bulk rates, last year's Council report on the effects of Metrowater reintegrated as a SABU showed a Remuera property with a $300,000 rateable value (ie rentable at $5700 per week !) was saving $5700 a year in rates ($110 a week) since Metrowater's establishment - so would lose that benefit if the company was abolished.

Small business water-users, and community organisations from pigeon clubs, to marae, to scout groups, who have to pay water and wastewater charges even if they are tenants, and may face massively increased bills if pipes are larger than standard size, are possibly hardest hit of all. Though their water usage can often be as low as $3 a year, many have little or no ability to recover the costs of wastewater systems charges set at over $500 a year along with higher usage charges on water and wastewater.

Schools too, from kindergartens and kohanga reo, to primary and secondary schools, which don't pay rates but since Metrowater's establishment have been forced to pay wastewater as well as water charges, are depleting badly underfunded operations grants to meet these impossible extra costs.

This is the so-called 'fairness' of user pays, when funding for public services is no longer spread across the community on the basis of ability to pay that property-valued rates represent

As in Auckland City, Papakura residents have faced a four-to-five-fold increase in water bills, since their water was privatised by their previous Council.  Despite residents' objections, in 1997 a 30-year franchise for management of their water services was sold to United Water, a consortium of two multinational water companies, Thames Water (UK) and (French) Generale des Eaux. One 4-month residential water/wastewater bill from United Water totalled $488.75. No leaks - just watering the garden.

Yet Roger Kerr of the Business Roundtable in the same speech claimed: "Papakura's record shows that, with political will and leadership, substantial benefits can be delivered to ratepayers."

Which ratepayers was that again, Roger?
 

 WATER PRESSURE GROUP CAMPAIGN NEEDS FUNDS

  *  In a well-organised, methodical campaign, which does us all much credit, Water Pressure Group members have delivered 90,000 leaflets and 60,000 insert leaflets with contact details for all City Councillors.

  * Letters and information packs have been sent to over 800 community groups and organisations urging them and their members to support our campaign.

*  All Auckland secondary, primary and pre-schools covered by NZEI and the PPTA have received pro-forma submission forms, with at least one school,
Avondale Primary, sending out leaflets and Councillor contact inserts to all parents. Chaucer Primary School in Blockhouse Bay has recently announced that it has been boycotting wastewater charges for five weeks, and wants a political solution ie abolition of Metrowater Ltd.

*  A nationwide educational newspaper, Eduvac, in an issue carrying a Water Pressure Group letter, inserted a Water Pressure Group information pack with every copy to all Auckland schools.

Now Water Pressure Group urgently needs funds to pay for all this. Donations welcome to Box 10046, Dominion Rd, Mt Eden, Auckland.
 
 

SUBMISSIONS TO THE COUNCIL - KEEP SENDING US YOUR OVERDUE PRO-FORMAS
Were due in Tuesday, May 25, or close of business Wednesday, May 26, at the latest.

Water Pressure Group will continue accepting all pro-forma submission forms, because we have thousands of sheets unaccounted for, and we intend to continue delivering them to the Council.

If you informed the Council that you want to make verbal submissions but they don't notify you of a time by several days before, ring and ask for one.   .
Phone: 379 2020.

You can also visit the Council's website:
 
 

MEETINGS THAT MATTER

Mon May 31, 7.30pm     Public Meeting on Water and Power - Organised by Alliance Party. For venue ph Sarah Martin 836 7179.

Tues June 22, 9.30am    Finance & Property Committee - All Councillors as members - Recommends adoption Annual Plan etc.

 Wed June 30, 9.30am    Special Council Meeting - Adopts Annual Plan etc

Water Pressure Group is considering organising a Dump Metrowater March up Queen St or a Rally at the June 22 meeting above which will for now decide the future of our water.

Come to our meetings Weds, 7.30pm, Fickling Centre, Mt Roskill,  to participate.
 
 

WASTEWATER BOYCOTT RUMOURS

Sharon Buckland (Metrowater):"10 people". Metrowater Contractor who quit: "30 a day eight weeks ago." Sneering Metrowater Contractor: "Only 10% of our customers".    That is approx 15,000 people !
 

THANKS TO US ALL

The four Water Pressure Group phones are running hot.

Here is a message left on Rose's phone recently:

"Hullo, I don't need you to ring me back. I just wanted to ring up and say thank you very much for the work that you're doing in regards to the Water Pressure Group.We've felt quite strongly about this ever since our water bills doubled, and having two children in the house. So thanks very much for all your effort and we're backing you 100%.  Thanks, bye."

And so say all of us!

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