The tariffs came into force on 1 October. Photo: 123RF
Cook Islands Prime Minister says most people on Rarotonga understand why a water tariff is needed, but people fighting the tax says it breaks a historic agreement with landowners.
The tariffs came into force on 1 October, with the first domestic payment of up to 50,000 litres being covered by the government.
Campaigners fighting the water charge tabled the "Keep Our Water Free" petition in parliament in September, which had gathered more than 3000 signatures, about a fifth of the island nation's resident population.
It was the latest petition, with one being previously presented to parliament in 2014 and 2020.
One of the leaders of the campaign to keep water free, Joyana Finch, said the tariff breaches a historic agreement made last century between landowners and the Crown.
"It was pretty simple the landowners said that the Crown can use their land to catch the water as long as it was reticulated free of charge to the people," Finch said.
She also said Rarotonga was a "water engineers dream" in terms of its natural environment.
"The people here we're not silly we know that water is not delivered by magic and there is a cost to the infrastructure and to the operations involved.
"We are tropical, we are volcanic, we have lots of mountains, we are water rich there's no reason for us to pay extra money on top of our general taxation that was promised to cover the reticulation of water."
Rarotonga's water authority is charging commercial users NZ$34 a month for the first 50,000 litres, while domestic users will be charged NZ$17 a month for the same amount.
A separate submission presented by Tere Carr, Cook Islands Tourism Industry Council President and a landowner said: "The people of Rarotonga are already paying for water through taxation. Tariffs as an additional tax on water will only burden our people with more increased cost of living expenses".
"Once we start paying tariffs, there will be no end to the heights that TTV will go, to extort more money out of our people - we have already seen this in the 300% increase in its projected operating budget alone of $1.5m in 2020. It is now over $4.5m and growing."
Prime Minister Mark Brown Photo: Supplied
However, Prime Minister Mark Brown said the charges are modest.
"Most people understand that there is a cost to delivering water to households and it's fair and appropriate that those who use more should carry a bit more of the cost of that," he told RNZ Pacific.
"It enables the water authority to be able to collect revenues to ensure that it can cover its cost of providing a good clean water service right across the island."
Finch said Cook Islanders are already "economically vulnerable" with more than half of the earning population making less than NZD$20,000 a year.
"After the Covid lockdown, we had an exodus of the working class into New Zealand and Australia. So now what's left is a very young and a very old and vulnerable demographic.
"Everyone stands to lose; everyone feels the cost of living is high enough in Rarotonga."
