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Speaker 1: The government's plan to replace the three Waters legislation has

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Speaker 1: been revealed. Council controlled water organizations will be able to

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Speaker 1: leverage up to five hundred percent five times. Basically, they're

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Speaker 1: operating revenues through the local government funding agency and they

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Speaker 1: can body up with councils to do this. Councils not

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Speaker 1: necessarily even on their border, so the Commerce Commission will

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Speaker 1: oversee it to make sure there's appropriate investment, maintenance and

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Speaker 1: delivery of water infrastructure for consumers' long term. The Auckland

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Speaker 1: councilor Daniel Newman is with me this morning. Good morning Daniel,

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Speaker 1: Good morning Ryan. What do you make of this? Is

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Speaker 1: this better than three Waters?

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Speaker 2: Yes? It is. It is because it keeps the assets

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Speaker 2: within council. It does provide a facility for borrowing to

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Speaker 2: fund and that facility will be cheaper. It will put

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Speaker 2: real pressure back on councils in terms of ensuring appropriate

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Speaker 2: governance of these wars water entities. But I think it's

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Speaker 2: a better model than what was proposed by the previous government.

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Speaker 1: What does it mean in Auckland for water Care.

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Speaker 2: Well, what it will mean is that water Care is

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Speaker 2: able to effectively borrow off the off the council's balance sheets,

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Speaker 2: so that allows it to be able to access more

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Speaker 2: more debt. But you know, it would be a cheaper

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Speaker 2: borrowing facility, and that's quite important because your borrowing capacity

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Speaker 2: is restricted according to your debt to revenue ratio. So

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Speaker 2: at the moment, what would happen if you didn't have

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Speaker 2: access to cheaper debt? You would have to raise rights

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Speaker 2: rates faster and faster in order to ensure that you

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Speaker 2: maintain a debt to revenue ratio, which is you know,

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Speaker 2: I don't want to be basically be taxing my constituents

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Speaker 2: just to meet a borrowing limits. So I think it's

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Speaker 2: a better option for for Auckland. Is I think it

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Speaker 2: will probably be a better option for a lot of

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Speaker 2: peace around the country.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they reckon you can you know we're borrowing five

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Speaker 1: times what you take in through your water rates. It

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Speaker 1: would double what the current most cecos would currently do.

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Speaker 1: Do you do we need Does Aukland need to buddy

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Speaker 1: up with anyone else?

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Speaker 2: Auckland won't need to buddy up with anybody, And I'm

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Speaker 2: quite relieved about that. Auckland is big enough and ugly

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Speaker 2: enough to look after itself. But there will be councils

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Speaker 2: outside of the Auckland region who I'm sure will need

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Speaker 2: to buddy up. And that's not unworkable. It is complex,

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Speaker 2: but it is it is. It is a feasible option

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Speaker 2: if you can get that partnership relationship through a shareholder's

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Speaker 2: representative group.

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Speaker 1: Daniel, very quickly, in one word, can you answer this question?

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Speaker 1: Wayne Brown's gone to the Herald this morning saying he

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Speaker 1: wants to dethrone Auckland Transport, stripping away the unelected board members' powers,

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Speaker 1: putting elected representatives in full control. He wants to gut

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Speaker 1: the place. Do you agree with him? Yes, thanks for

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Speaker 1: your time.

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Speaker 2: That is sick.

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Speaker 1: That's Daniel Newman, the Auckland Counts.

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