Mayors Memo: Compliance success, 3 Waters reform feedback

Kia ora,

Getting clear results is a good thing, but when they’re excellent as well as clear then that’s simply great! In early March Kaipara District Council reports we are running at 100 percent compliance for the year to date since July for the following parts of the business:

· Full compliance with NZ Drinking Water Standards year to date.

· 100 percent of building consents processed within statutory timeframes year to date.

· 100 percent of resource consents processed within statutory timeframes year to date.

Simply, it doesn’t get better than this. Hopefully our customers and people in the community notice things have been running well around here, as we expect they should. KDC officers work hard to serve our community and to uphold the legislated standards the whole Council believes people expect from their Council. It’s getting harder to hold the standards in the current environment where Covid is in the community and there are challenges for business continuity as well as staff leaving to other higher-paying roles elsewhere. But for now it looks like a great record-breaking stretch of stellar performance here, as we’re growing a better Kaipara.

Growing less bright for me right now is the Three Waters Reforms. Since late November I participated in the 3 Waters Working Group on Representation, Governance and Accountability for the reform programme, alongside iwi leaders and other mayors from across New Zealand. The final was delivered to Minister Mahuta recently, including 47 new recommendations for the proposed legislation. I engaged in the Working Group in good faith and did my best for Kaipara and Northland people, including getting space in the final report to explain the case for a different voting system for decisions of the proposed Entity for this part of the country. Will see how that goes. Auckland Mayor Phil Goff got several pages in which to explain why Auckland wants out of the reforms. For Kaipara we got special two paragraphs on a detail, but I am pleased for that. Kaipara counts!

Following the release of the final report I have reflected on the commitment I made to the Kaipara people to go into this work to get answers for us all to questions and matters that were unclear. I got answers but am uncomfortable with them. I have written a statement which includes my rejection of these reforms which I now firmly believe are the wrong answer to the right question. You can find it at kaipara.govt.nz/threewaters. Government is due to be coming back to KDC soon with answers to the detailed questions the whole Council has posed, and these will also be made available to everyone on the website. It’s disappointing to get to the end of a journey that’s unsatisfactory. But, then again, not everything can be at 100 percent.

Nga mihi,

Mayor Jake

Dr Jason Smith, Mayor of Kaipara District