Nick Mills: Wellington cannot afford Tiaki Wai's water meters

EDITORIAL: There's moments in this city where you stop, you look at the numbers, and you think — this cannot be real. And it happens too often.  This cannot be happening to us. And yet it is, here we go again.  A bill of half a billion dollars — possibly pushing $590 million — just to roll out water meters across the region.   Now think about that for a second, please.   This is not fixing the pipes. Not stopping the leaks.   Not upgrading the system that’s literally spilling out under our feet every single day.   No — just for water meters.  We were told this would be under control. We were told this was the plan. We were told this would fix things.  Back in 2020, the estimate was $144 million.   Thenall of a sudden it doubled to $300 million.   Then $412 million.   Now we’re staring down the barrel of nearly $600 million.  That is not a plan to me— that is a runaway train.  And I go back — I keep going back — to that moment a couple of years ago in New World, doing my shopping, bumping into former councillor Tim Brown.   He looked me in the eye and said he’d just come from a water meeting, he said “water rates are going to go crazy.”  Well Tim, with respect — you undersold it. You didn’t say: “Get ready to wonder if you can actually afford to live here anymore.”  I wanted more from you, if you knew it was that bad I wanted you to tell me to pack up and get out of town quickly, because it cannot be any worse.  Because that’s where we’re heading.  This is the part that really gets me: we’re being told this is necessary, that this is smart, that this is the fix. No one disagrees with that.  And yet even supporters are saying the numbers are — and I quote — “nonsensical.”  When you’ve got politicians, former councillors, and everyday Wellingtonians all looking at the same figure and using the same word — nonsensical — maybe, maybe, just maybe, it is.  That’s not just inefficient. That’s madness.  And this is from a person that wants to have water meters, I’m supportive of water meters.  And I’ll say something that might make a few people uncomfortable this morning: why are we insisting on doing this ourselves if we clearly don’t have the expertise?   Even Tim Brown is questioning whether the new entity has the capability to run this rollout. He says they have no inhouse expertise on metering.  So here’s a radical idea — put it out to the world.   Tender it internationally.   Get the best operators, the most efficient systems, the sharpest pricing.   I don’t care if they come from Asia, Europe, wherever — just get it done properly, do it once and do it a hell of alot  cheaper.  Because right now, this city is becoming unaffordable.  You’ve heard me say it before — and I’ll keep saying it — how the hell are ordinary Wellingtonians supposed to stay in the city and keep up with these payments?   How do we do it?  At some point, enough is enough.  And I reckon for me, we are there now.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.