Media Release 
For immediate release
22 July 2021 

Council stands by commitment to consult about Three Waters Reform 

Kawerau District Council is working through the challenges of the Government’s Three Waters Reform.

At a workshop earlier this week, Council agreed that the first priority is to confirm whether the community will be better off or worse off if the District’s Three Waters assets and ownership are transferred to one of the four entities being proposed under the reform. 

As part of that due diligence, Council is commissioning an independent review that is due in mid-August. 

This will assess:
•    The impacts of maintaining the Three Waters assets in its current community ownership, which are managed by Council; 
•    The impacts of Kawerau’s Three Waters assets under the control and ownership of the Government’s proposed Three Waters entities.

Mayor Malcolm Campbell said, “Once we have this data we will be sharing this with our community, and gathering feedback about what is best for the district.” 

Last week at the Local Government NZ (LGNZ) annual conference the Prime Minister announced a funding package for all Councils. For Kawerau this would be a package of just over $17.2 million in exchange for the Three Waters assets. 

How this money could be utilised to assist the district is still being finalised by the Government. Council will consider this package as part of the better off/worse off analysis.
The challenge is ensuring that Council has enough time to discuss and consult with our community with the new condensed timeline. But we will be working hard to ensure that we can do this to get the mandate from you – our community. 

Kawerau District Council is preparing to adopt the Long Term Plan 2021-2031 on Tuesday 27 July.

Considerable work has gone into all aspects of the 10-year plan, including the replacement of infrastructure and renewal of assets like drinking water pipes and the future growth of the district. 
Feedback from the community during our early engagement and formal consultation processes has been positive. This flowed through to a good number of submissions and overwhelming support for the three major consultation items. In addition, we received some constructive feedback and ideas to enhance the district across a wide range of areas including access to parks and reserves.  

[ENDS] 

For more information, please contact Kawerau District Council Communications Manager Tania Humberstone on 027 464 3785.