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Speaker 1: So local water done well is going to cost nine

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Speaker 1: billion dollars more than previously estimated. The total investment will

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Speaker 1: come to forty seven point nine billion dollars. The local

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Speaker 1: government Minister Simon What says, this just shows that water

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Speaker 1: projects have been underfunded. They can't wait any longer. We

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Speaker 1: have to spend the money. So the Water New Zealand

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Speaker 1: Chief executive Officer is Gillian Blythe that she joins me

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Speaker 1: this morning. Good morning to you, Jillian, good morning. Why

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Speaker 1: is it blown out?

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Speaker 2: Why is it blown out? Because over the last two

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Speaker 2: to three decades across the country, councils have been trying

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Speaker 2: to juggle their many demands on their budgets and investment

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Speaker 2: and water infrastructure has not kept pace with what was required.

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Speaker 2: So they haven't been as enough renewals of the pets

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Speaker 2: and they haven't been as much required in terms of

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Speaker 2: looking out of the treatment plan. So it's brutal.

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Speaker 1: So it's brutal evidence that we have had decades of

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Speaker 1: under investment in water infrastructure and eventually you have to

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Speaker 1: pay the bill.

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Speaker 2: You're absolutely right that what what The challenge that was

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Speaker 2: provided to councils through this through this reform process was

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Speaker 2: to submit a water service delivery plan that would show

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Speaker 2: that they were financially sustainable, that they were going to

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Speaker 2: meet regulatory compliance, that they would be able to deliver

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Speaker 2: on the housing growth and the urban developments that were

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Speaker 2: required in their neighborhoods. And so that's what's seens across

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Speaker 2: you know, detailed you know, financials for the ten year period,

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Speaker 2: and then it's some extra information for the next thirty

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Speaker 2: that is seen from all councils providing what they need

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Speaker 2: to spend on the murals, what they need to spend

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Speaker 2: on growth, and what we need to across drinking water,

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Speaker 2: wastewater and stormwater.

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Speaker 1: Have you seen the plan and does it look good?

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Speaker 1: And will we notice a difference so all of.

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Speaker 2: The plans, Well, let me just go. So you've got

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Speaker 2: sixty seven councils that have submitted I think the last

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Speaker 2: time I went and looked at the website, they were

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Speaker 2: about fifty four that are on the website. We've got

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Speaker 2: more visibility now about the state of water infrastructure than

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Speaker 2: we've had probably ever. We will be able. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I've got people that are doing analysis of the plans

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Speaker 2: at the moment such that you can you know, you'll

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Speaker 2: be able to say, you know, what's happening in the

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Speaker 2: lowest sept what's happening in the you know, the top

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Speaker 2: of the north, et cetera, to be able to look

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Speaker 2: at what's what's going to be required.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so look, the basic model is actually similar to

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Speaker 1: three waters, but it had a voluntary aspect of no

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Speaker 1: centralization and of course no co governance. And we were

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Speaker 1: always told that local water done well will be cheaper

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Speaker 1: than the big monster that was going to be three waters.

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Speaker 1: Can you compare the two Is it still cheaper than

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Speaker 1: three waters would have been, even though it has burned

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Speaker 1: out by nine billion dollars and the whole thing is

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Speaker 1: forty seven point nine billion.

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Speaker 2: I think, you know, as always is the case with this,

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Speaker 2: you know, you would be carefully comparing an apple with

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Speaker 2: an apple. Some of the figures that you saw under

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Speaker 2: the labor proposals, where you know, some of the big

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Speaker 2: headline figures were sort of one hundred and twenty one

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Speaker 2: hundred and eighty billion, but that was over thirty years.

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Speaker 2: This was over that. The figures of forties seven point

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Speaker 2: nine billion or forty eight billion are over the first

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Speaker 2: ten years. You know, we're going to want the wants

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Speaker 2: the you know, in some cases the nineteen council controlled

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Speaker 2: organizations sort have come together either a single councils or

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Speaker 2: multi councils that have come together, are rather than going

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Speaker 2: to be looking at what it means for those districts

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Speaker 2: as for the in house business units. So we're going

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Speaker 2: to discover what's actually required, and then we've got to

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Speaker 2: come together and see whether we can continue to find

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Speaker 2: more efficiencies and more ways of leveraging the strengths that

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Speaker 2: exists across different councils provisions.

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Speaker 1: At the moment, Yeah, when I saw some articles and

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Speaker 1: some news wild back comparing the ten year plan versus

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Speaker 1: the thirty year plan and the forty seven point nine

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Speaker 1: million if you expand that over three and they started

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Speaker 1: looking at the cost of it all, and they started saying, well,

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Speaker 1: it looks like local water done well as going to

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Speaker 1: cost even more than three waters. But is that because

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Speaker 1: the infrastructure is more expensive.

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Speaker 2: I think the more you you know, just in the

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Speaker 2: same way as you look at your own house, you know,

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Speaker 2: the more you look at it, the more you realize

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Speaker 2: that you've got to spend a bit of money on

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Speaker 2: you know, painting that window or fixing that roos. What

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Speaker 2: what's happened is that there has been a real focus

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Speaker 2: on ensuring regulatory compliants. We've got wastewater treatment plants across

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Speaker 2: the country, you know, many who are We've got trends

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Speaker 2: and duty that are council owned, many of which are

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Speaker 2: on expired consents and needing upgrades. And so once you

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Speaker 2: start looking at those sorts of things, you've got to

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Speaker 2: work out, you know, right, you know, is there amodular solution,

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Speaker 2: is there technologies?

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Speaker 1: And all I get that, I get that it is

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Speaker 1: only going to get more and more expensive. And I

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time today. That is

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Speaker 1: the Water in New Zealand Chief executive Jillian Blythe. For

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Speaker 1: more from Earlily Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to

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