Yesterday the government introduced the Water Services Entities Bill (the Bill) to Parliament. The Bill establishes four new Water Services Entities (WSEs) to manage, develop and deliver drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services across New Zealand. In doing so the Bill provides for the objectives, functions, service delivery areas and governance arrangements for the WSEs. The Bill will be subject to the select committee process providing the opportunity for public submissions on it.
The Bill is the first of a series of proposed bills to establish a new system for national water services. Later legislation will provide for the transfer of assets and liabilities from local authorities to the WSEs and economic regulation and consumer protection.
Background to the reforms can be found in our recently published article - Water Services Entities - how did we get here?
Our infrastructure team has considerable expertise in Three Waters and public sector reform, economic regulation and service integration into new entities. If you have any questions on the Bill, and the wider Three Water Reforms, please do not hesitate to contact one of our team.
