Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has welcomed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s encouraging response to yesterday’s call for a rethink on the details of “three waters” reform.

Yesterday, the Mayors of Auckland and Christchurch agreed a joint proposal to make progress on the divisive issue and achieve consensus between and among central and local government.

Several mayors from around the country have since supported their call for a new constructive conversation to begin to achieve consensus across Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Prime Minister said yesterday the Mayors’ proposal had been made in “good faith”. She said she wanted central and local government to “keep working together, because I think the mayors have a focus on making sure that their ratepayers don’t experience that spike in cost of living”, a focus she said her Government shared.

The Government was “open to making changes that improve the proposals, but we say that with a complete and utter focus on making sure that those changes don’t undermine the fundamental principle, which is making sure we don’t see an increase in costs for ratepayers beyond what is currently projected,” the Prime Minister said.

Local Government Nanaia Mahuta made similarly encouraging remarks yesterday, including that she was “really pleased that [the mayors] signalled an opportunity to commence a dialogue, and we’ll consider, certainly, [the] matters that they have raised. Some of the areas we’ve traversed already, but the most important thing is that the dialogue on this particular challenge remains open”.

Mayor Brown said it was clear there was a great deal of common ground on which to build a consensus.

“As we said yesterday, no one disputes that Aotearoa New Zealand needs to invest billions of dollars in water infrastructure over the decades ahead – and we will all need to pay for that one way or the other,” he said.

“The question is how that investment from taxpayers, ratepayers and water users is to be shared and managed, and we think our proposal maps out a path forward on which everyone should be able to make progress.”

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