'This is what it looks like': Mayor speaks on city's water under-investment

Wellington's mayor says decades of under-investment in water infrastructure is hitting home for the capital.RNZ has revealed over 30,000 residents and businesses across the region - about 18.5 percent of invoiced accounts - had not paid their first quarterly Tiaki Wai bill, with the second round due to arrive from late October.The water agency's chief executive, Michael Brewster, said the payments were in line with what he would expect given this was the first time people had received separate bills.He said no penalties would be applied for late payment for an initial period, and no ones water would be cut off if they had not paid.Wellington Mayor Andrew Little told Morning Report he would expect a new big water agency may have some "teething problems" initially, and the organisation needed to be dedicated to fixing networks, upgrades and ensuring safe water infrastructure."What is happening now is chickens coming home to roost from decades ago. So no one should be surprised about it."This is a generation that is confronting a problem that has been decades in the making."Little said this was the start of the "long process of recovering decades of under-investment, so this is what it looks like".The mayor said both the current government and previous government were trying to tackle the issue. The Local Water Done Well policy did not include central government funding to alleviate the price burden, Little said, while the previous government's policy did.He said the government had been trying to recover long-standing under-investment in water infrastructure.Little was asked about the pay of executives at Tiaki Wai, which includes a $645,000 salary for chief executive Michael Brewster."Look, they are an organisation set up under the Local Water Done Well policy that provide organisations run on a professional sort of basis with the right skills."What the board, the independent board does in terms of hiring staff is a matter for them, it is what it is," Little said.Some residents have been shocked and concerned by the price trajectory of bills - which could reach over $6000 per decade, this prompted protests against the agency in August.Little said he believed the Commerce Commission would have to regulate the agency's prices eventually, despite comments from the chairperson that it would not do that yet."I think as Tiaki Wai works out its pricing strategy over time, I expect we will need the Commerce Commission to exercise its price regulation power, we'll see how that goes," Little said.John Small told Nine to Noon this week affordability was not in its mandate and currently Tiaki Wai's costs far exceeded the money it was collecting from Wellingtonians.