MEDIA STATEMENT

6 April 1999 Press Index
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Dump Metrowater!  Put it On the Agenda!

The Water Pressure Group has been refused speaking rights at the Auckland City Council Finance and Property Committee Meeting of April 6.The Review of Options on Wastewater Charging  - Iisted as Item 24 on today's agenda - arose, in spite of our objections, when our deputation urged Council on February 25 to abolish Metrowater Ltd by July 1 this year.Our written submission was supposed to be part of the Review.It is not.

We are extremely concerned that the abolition of Metrowater Ltd as a commercialised water LATE and its reintegration under Council control as a non-profit Stand Alone Business Unit (SABU) is not on the agenda and not in this year's draft budget for the annual plan.

The rates increase from the reintegration of Metrowater as a SABU will shift the burden of rates and wastewater charges back from the poorer onto the richer section of the community to the great benefit and relief of the majority of Aucklanders, in this year and the years to come.

Abolition of Metrowater Ltd will protect our water services from future privatisation by Council or by Government.
This review Options for Wastewater Charging  is intended to keep Metrowater Ltd in existence.
The Review  is appallingly deficient in facts and information and should not be received.

There is no factual basis to be found for quoted rateable values, no quantifying of residential properties in each category, and percentage
increases or decreases in rates are made meaningless by absence of information. The greatly inflated $75.52 million wastewater costs proposed by Metrowater Ltd for 1999 / 2000 on which the Review is based necessarily include profit and tax considerations which will vanish with the company itself.

The Review   should be thrown out.

The Water Pressure Group demands a resolution from the meeting that puts the abolition of Metrowater Ltd on the agenda and into this year's draft annual plan.There is a clear majority on this Council to dump Metrowater Ltd and we want Councillors to do the job they were elected to do and to do it now.
 

Ends

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