Ray Charles had it right back in 1967 when he sang “Here we go again”. Just when ratepayers thought they’d dodged the centralisation bullet, five Wellington councils have announced they’re forming a new jointly-owned water organisation by July 2026. Sound familiar? It should. Because while the branding’s changed and the politicians are calling it “local control,” the fundamental question remains: can we actually afford to keep water local, or is this just Three Waters with a friendlier face?
I’ll be upfront—I’m not here to defend the old Three Waters model. That ship sailed, and probably deserved to. But I’m equally suspicious when governments rebrand unpopular policies and expect us to applaud the “new approach.” So let’s dig into what’s actually happening in Wellington, because it might be coming to a council near you!
The Numbers Don’t Lie (Even If Politicians Do)
The infrastructure deficit facing New Zealand’s water systems is genuinely frightening—$110 billion over the next 30 years. That’s not a typo. That works out to roughly $1,500-1,800 per household every year just for water infrastructure. Your rates bill is already making you wince when you check the letterbox; imagine what happens when councils try to fund even a fraction of this locally.
The Wellington councils—Hutt City, Upper Hutt City, Porirua City, Wellington City, and Greater Wellington Regional Council—have looked at their balance sheets and done the math. Going it alone isn’t viable. Their existing infrastructure is ageing faster than their ability to pay for replacements, let alone the upgrades needed to meet modern environmental and health standards.
So they’re pooling resources. Makes sense on paper. Economies of scale, shared expertise, better borrowing power. All the buzzwords are there.
Community consultation showed 69-84% support for multi-council water organisations. That’s a remarkable level of agreement in local government, where getting people to agree on anything usually requires divine intervention. Either ratepayers have genuinely embraced regional collaboration, or they’ve looked at their alternatives and realised that going solo means rate increases that would make a banker blush.
Who’s Really Running the Show?
The government promises this is different from Three Waters because councils maintain ownership and control. But let’s be honest about what “local control” actually means when you’ve got five separate councils trying to run one organisation.
Who makes the decisions when Upper Hutt wants to prioritise pipe replacement but Wellington City needs a new treatment plant? What happens when smaller districts’ ratepayers—already paying more per capita than their urban neighbours—push back against subsidising Wellington’s infrastructure? These aren’t theoretical problems; they’re the inevitable tensions that arise when you try to balance local democracy with regional efficiency.
The legislation was passed in August 2025, conveniently ahead of the October local elections. That timing isn’t accidental. Get the framework locked in before voters can properly hold anyone accountable. It’s the same playbook we’ve seen before: create the structure first, sort out the messy details later, and hope nobody notices until it’s too late to change course.
What “Local” Really Costs
Let me put this in perspective. If the Wellington region needs, say, $8 billion of the national $110 billion over 30 years (a conservative estimate given the capital’s ageing infrastructure), that’s roughly $267 million per year.
Split across the region’s roughly 215,000 households, you’re looking at about $1,240 per household annually just for water infrastructure. That’s on top of existing water charges. Now tell me with a straight face that ratepayers can absorb that without either savage service cuts somewhere else, or rate increases that would trigger a ratepayer revolt.
The Government knows this. The councils know this. The question is whether they’re being honest about it.
The Centralisation You Can’t See
Here’s what really bothers me: we’re getting centralisation by stealth. Instead of one big national entity that everyone could see and critique, we’re getting multiple regional organisations that are still too big to be truly local but too small to achieve the most efficient economies of scale.
It’s the worst of both worlds dressed up as a compromise. You lose the direct accountability of your local council managing your water, but you don’t gain the borrowing power and technical expertise of a genuinely large-scale operation.
The Wellington setup will inevitably need to hire expensive consultants, establish new governance structures, and build bureaucracy that didn’t exist before. That’s not a conspiracy theory; that’s organisational reality. And who pays for all that overhead? You guessed it—the same ratepayers who were promised savings through collaboration.
So What’s the Alternative?
I can already hear the objection: “Fine, Steve, criticise away—but what’s your solution?” Fair question.
The honest answer is that there is no perfect solution. The infrastructure deficit is real, and it needs addressing. We can’t wish it away, and we can’t keep deferring maintenance until the pipes literally explode under our streets—which, let’s be clear, they’re already doing in some places.
But we can demand genuine transparency about costs and trade-offs. If regional organisations are the answer, show us the detailed business cases. Not the glossy brochures with stock photos of happy families drinking water, but the actual financial modelling. What will rates look like in five years? Ten years? What happens when the borrowing costs rise or the infrastructure turns out to be worse than expected?
And here’s the crucial bit: build in real accountability mechanisms before these organisations become operational, not as an afterthought. That means ratepayer representatives with actual power, not just consultation rights. It means transparent financial reporting that doesn’t require a PhD in accounting to decipher. It means clear pathways for councils to exit if the arrangement isn’t working.
The Real Question
Local Water Done Well might deliver exactly what it promises. Or it might be Three Waters with better marketing and a regional twist. The truth is, we won’t know until it’s operational, and by then the legislative framework will be locked in and the new organisations will have momentum that’s almost impossible to reverse. I’ve seen this pattern before with our electricity system—grand promises of efficiency gains, followed by structures that become permanent regardless of whether they deliver.
The legislation racing through before the local elections should worry you. Not because collaboration is inherently bad, but because rushed policies made under political pressure rarely serve the public interest well.
Wellington ratepayers are the canaries in the coal mine here. Watch carefully how this unfolds, because your council is probably having similar conversations behind closed doors. And when they come to you with their own “locally-led” water solution, you’ll know what questions to ask.
Demand the numbers. Demand the accountability mechanisms. And demand honest answers about what “local control” really means when five councils share one organisation and ratepayers foot the bill.
Because if we’ve learned anything from the Three Waters debate, it’s this: the devil isn’t just in the details—he’s in the rate notice that arrives after the politicians have moved on to the next issue.
Steve Baron is a New Zealand-based political commentator and author. He holds a BA with a double major in Economics and Political Science from the University of Waikato and an Honours Degree in Political Science from Victoria University of Wellington. A former businessman in the advertising industry, he founded the political lobby group Better Democracy NZ. https://stevebaron.co.nz