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Speaker 1: News b I'm Andrew Dickins. This is the White tonguey

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Speaker 1: day Breakfast. Yes, water and water infrastructure, So Bromley continues

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Speaker 1: to cause a stink and the people in the eastern

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Speaker 1: suburbs there are riching. Meanwhile, Wellington is also riching millions

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Speaker 1: of liters of raw sewage pouring onto its beaches. Reports

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Speaker 1: it our merging of years of monthly non compliance at

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Speaker 1: more point. So Jillian blythe there's water New Zealand's chief

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Speaker 1: executive and is with us this morning. Quality of Jillian.

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Speaker 2: Hello, Jillian Hello, can you hear me? Yes?

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Speaker 1: I can so this Wellington sewage spill. What does it

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Speaker 1: tell us about the state of wastewater infrastructure generally, Well.

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Speaker 2: Generally across the country, we've got forty eight six fied contents,

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Speaker 2: so there are a number of wastewater treating plants around

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Speaker 2: that around the country, we've got over two hundred and

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Speaker 2: thirty plants. Some of those have been operating on expired

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Speaker 2: consents for a considerable amount of time. I think in

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Speaker 2: one case it's about twenty years. So what has been

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Speaker 2: acknowledged by all councils throughout the country is that we

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Speaker 2: need to continue to invest in our water infrastructure. And

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Speaker 2: so they have outlined in plans shared with the government

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Speaker 2: in September last year that they would spend forty seven

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Speaker 2: point nine billion dollars on water infrastructure over the next

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Speaker 2: ten years. Now that's a lot. That's a lot more

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Speaker 2: than we spend and have spent on a you know,

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Speaker 2: if we just divide by ten and we just said,

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Speaker 2: you know, we're talking about almost five billion dollars a year.

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Speaker 2: We have been spending more like one point five two

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Speaker 2: billion dollars a year, you know, in recent times. So

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Speaker 2: that's going to be a big lift, and we're going

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Speaker 2: to see about six billion of that I spent on

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Speaker 2: way toward treatment projects themselves.

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Speaker 1: What's the point of having non compliance reports if nothing

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Speaker 1: happens after them.

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Speaker 2: I think what's really critical is that we need to

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Speaker 2: have regulatory oversight and we need to be able to

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Speaker 2: highlight what it is that the type of non compliances.

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Speaker 2: So sometimes those non compliances can be at the lower end,

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Speaker 2: whether we're report was wild at the right time, whether

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Speaker 2: example was taken in the right you know, in the

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Speaker 2: right time period. But some of them will be at

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Speaker 2: the more complex end, and we need to make sure

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Speaker 2: that we are focusing on that information. I think one

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Speaker 2: of the pieces that we will see, particularly for those

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Speaker 2: councils where they've chosen to move to a council controlled organization,

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Speaker 2: where we're going to have professional directors who are going

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Speaker 2: to be looking after at a governance level the water

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Speaker 2: services organizations, is that they're going to be looking at

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Speaker 2: this we're very much form of professional direct lens and

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Speaker 2: looking at the non compliances because clearly there will be

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Speaker 2: you know, there will be liabilities that need to be understood.

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Speaker 1: All right. And also what about the backstops. I mean

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Speaker 1: they've gone for the shortfall pipe. There's a long fall

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Speaker 1: pipe at more point and a shortfall. The long fall

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Speaker 1: has failed completely and now they're going for the short fall.

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Speaker 1: So that's why the beaches are getting so polluted. I mean,

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Speaker 1: do we have sufficient backstops?

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Speaker 2: Look, I think there is a real question for water infrastructure,

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Speaker 2: full stop, whether it's dinky water, wastewater or storm water,

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Speaker 2: to make sure that we look at the resilience of

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Speaker 2: our infrastructure, but just to put it in practice. I mean,

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Speaker 2: if we had decided at my point to put in

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Speaker 2: a second long outfall as a backstop to our first one,

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Speaker 2: that obviously has a major cost implication, and so that

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Speaker 2: we just need to be practical that you know, unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: failures can happen, and no one wants a failure to happen,

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Speaker 2: and everyone will always be working rapidly to try and

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Speaker 2: fix it. I think one of the important things that

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Speaker 2: we need to think about is, you know, we have

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Speaker 2: our parts to play in avoiding failures because we good

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Speaker 2: we need to be good citizens. We need to make

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Speaker 2: sure we're only flushing the three ps p boo paper.

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Speaker 2: You know, please don't slush a wet wipe down the

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Speaker 2: toilet because what that does it gets blocked, that blocked

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Speaker 2: and so you could end up having blockages in pipes

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Speaker 2: throughout the city, throughout us, throughout the town, which can

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Speaker 2: then cause overflows. And so that's a really important in

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Speaker 2: this in this you know, not just today with incidents

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Speaker 2: happened in Wellington, but all you know, from now on,

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Speaker 2: anybody does flush wet.

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Speaker 1: White well shows shows we've all got a part to play.

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Speaker 1: And you're quite right, there were all reports of so

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Speaker 1: many whip wipes coming up on Lyle Bay and they're

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Speaker 1: the very things that actually screw up the whole system,

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Speaker 1: which is why it then failed. So Jillian bly Water,

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Speaker 1: New Zealand's Chief executive, and thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: your time. It is now seven twenty. For more from

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Speaker 1: the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks it'd

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