This month’s vote on the District Plan was a big win for housing, but what about the other big crisis facing the region? Jonny Osborne is unconvinced by water metering – but says Wellington Water has got to change.    

The drums have been beating steadily louder for water metering in Wellington. Greater Wellington chair Daran Ponter, Porirua mayor Anita Baker and Hutt City mayor Campbell Barry have been leading the beat, recently Wellington’s mayor Tory Whanau voiced her support, and even well-known metering sceptic mayor Wayne Guppy of Upper Hutt has offered begrudging concessions. This publication even went so far as to call past councillors cowards for not implementing metering sooner. Council elections are scheduled for October next year, and metering is an early contender to dominate the debate. 

Water metering has a clear and appealing logic. A charge is placed on water, and as a result we use it more judiciously. Moreover, some of us find our pipes are leaking, and in order to avoid large bills, we plug the leaks. Less water is wasted, pipes are fixed, and more water is left in the rivers and aquifer that provide our drinking water. A win for the creatures and plants that rely on those water bodies. 

The evidence is pretty clear that metering will reduce water use, the oft-cited local example of Kāpiti being a prime example. But where do the costs of metering fall? Metering replaces a progressive funding model with a regressive user-pays system. Neoliberalism 101, basically. It’s a flawed progressive funding model, no doubt, but it is one where tax directly relates to wealth, measured in this instance by the value of property. A metered system ignores the value of property. Residents pay the same for water whether they own a mansion in Khandallah or rent a townhouse in Karori. 

In Kāpiti it was said that plenty of residents saved money when metering was introduced. But if you replace a progressive funding system with a regressive one and some residents pay less, it’s reasonable to ask who pays more? Renters, most likely. The renter gets a water bill; their landlord pays less in rates. Treasury poured cold water on the idea that National’s tax breaks for landlords would be passed on to renters, and similar can be said about these ones. Wellington already has a lot of renters, and the council just voted for more. 

There are definitely options to limit this impact of metering. Water bills can be divided between a base rate based on property value and metering, or residents could be granted a “reasonable use’ allocation, above which metering kicks in. But finding a sweet spot where our behaviour changes and the costs fall fairly looms as a difficult challenge for councillors. This is while they also confront a funding shortfall of billions to carry out necessary maintenance and upgrades of the public network. On top of that, there’s the predicted population increase and harsher droughts. If they prove true we’re going to need more storage capacity, which won’t come cheap.

The point is not to say metering is a bad idea. Judged by the metrics of reduced waste and less leaky private pipes, it is in fact obviously good. It will also allow investment in extra storage to be deferred, although not indefinitely. All well and good but it also fundamentally alters the way we fund our water network and like any significant reform, creates winners and losers. 

Are there other options that fulfil the twin benefits of metering: households using less water and plugging their leaks? Possibly, if we reallocate the $130 million predicted cost of installing meters. How about installing efficient washing machines and dishwashers in all the homes of Community Services Card holders? Or requiring plumbing WOFs before a property can be sold? Or simply funding plumbers to assess the quality of our private pipes? We could even think outside the box and fund upgrades of private pipes on fiscally neutral terms paid back through rates bills. If it works for a multinational like Reading, it might just work for a multi-storey in Rongotai too. 

Unlike metering, what is very clear is the system for overseeing Wellington’s water network is not working. Currently, we have an organisation, Wellington Water, responsible for maintaining and upgrading the network. It does this by contracting the work to private companies. Oh, and it doesn’t own any of the network. Multiple councils do. They levy residents at different rates to fund WW to do its job. But they don’t provide enough funding because other priorities get in the way. Or they just don’t want to raise rates. Some of this insufficient funding is set aside for projects in their boundaries, the rest of it funds regional projects. It’s the real-life punchline of the joke about camels and committees. 

Serious people need to have serious discussions about reforming the way in which Wellington’s network is managed. Governance, funding and ownership are all gnarly issues that need addressing, but a good argument could be made that any new arrangement will be better than the one currently in place. 

Consolidating ownership in one public entity appeals as a way to access funding on more favourable terms but will require councils to relinquish control of assets. Likewise any streamlining of the funding, where residents are directly levied by the water entity, limits the role of councils. And as anyone associated with the last government is acutely aware, governance issues can be tricky to handle. If these challenges can be overcome, Wellington might find it slightly easier to access the necessary funding, whether through borrowing, central government, ratepayers, or even private sources like sovereign wealth funds. 

It’s an understatement to say that Wellington’s councillors face some hard decisions about the future of our water. They’ve shown they can be brave when it comes to housing – Wellington needs them and their colleagues around the region to be brave when it comes to water too.