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How far has the government’s Three Waters policy retreated?
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- Brian Easton writes –
There are plenty of anecdotes which illustrate that the current management of fresh water, wastewater and storm water is failing. But they don’t explain the problem.
The Auditor-General observed in 2019/20, that the amount councils (excluding earthquake-recovering Christchurch) spent renewing pipes and other plant was 74 per cent of depreciation for water supply, 64 per cent for waste water and just 39 per cent for storm water. Councils struggling with funding shortages are failing to maintain their invisible piping; the anecdotal failures are a consequence. Shifting responsibility to separate visible agencies is a remedy. This government deserves credit for at last having faced up to the problem. It gets less credit for its solution.
The government’s first proposed solution was so unpopular and, in my judgement, so flawed that it has announced a retreat. How…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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