The new government is not playing its part in making water infrastructure upgrades more eficient, Chris Hipkins says. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Councils are now "carrying the can" for expensive water infrastructure upgrades they can ill afford, Labour leader Chris Hipkins says.
He said the real challenge now for local authorities and councils in the wake of the demise of Labour's Three Waters plan was how they would find the billions of dollars needed to fix the country's water infrastructure.
"They've got to figure out how to pay for something they simply don't have the capacity to pay for."
The government was effectively saying ratepayers would need to "stump up the bill for that".
"They're not going to do anything to make that cheaper or more efficient and ultimately ratepayers are going to pay that through their rates."
He predicted the smallest councils, often from rural or provincial areas, would be hardest hit and would face the biggest increases.
He agreed with the views of some mayors who had said upgraded water infrastructure would take longer and cost more.
Hipkins said the government had left councils "carrying the can" and trying to work out what they could do.
He said it was "nonsense" to suggest the last government had effectively wasted more than $1 billion on setting up Three Waters now that it was being repealed by the new government.
From that sum, over $500 million was ringfenced to go to councils to upgrade water infrastructure, more than $200m had been set aside for other critical infrastructure and the remainder went on setting up the new water entities to have the capability to do the work required.
"One way or the other, we are going to have to build that capability. There's a huge amount of work that's going to be required and we're going to have to pay for that."
Upgrade of emergency radio system chosen
On the 111 systems and its failings, Hipkins said his government had two competing proposals to consider for the 2023 Budget.
On Tuesday RNZ revealed the government was warned a year ago that the 111 emergency call system was so old, slow and fragmented that it was causing deaths and injuries, police documents showed.
But the Labour government dropped a project last August to replace the system, which is shared between police and Fire and Emergency.
They had opted to allocate funding for the emergency services radio system for police, Fire and Emergency and ambulance.
A decision on the 111 system was postponed until this year's Budget round so would have to be considered by the current government.
The Labour government could not afford to pay for both, Hipkins said. Cyclone Gabrielle had made it clear that it was critical for emergency services to be able to communicate with each other in an event like that, even when the power was out and cellphone services weren't operating.
"That was a critical investment. It was the more expensive of the two projects and we funded that one because we know how critical that is."
Backing over Israel policy
Hipkins welcomed the government's stronger stance on the conflict in Gaza, after it backed a halt on Israel's military actions.
He said there were legitimate questions to be asked around Israeli operations in Gaza and they would be scrutinised by appropriate international bodies.
He welcomed the government's stronger stance on Israel, including Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters meeting with the Israeli ambassador.
While he did not know what message Peters delivered, if it was in keeping with the government's stated position it was "potentially a very positive thing".
