Dunedin City Council water plans will unleash a torrent of resistance

The Alliance Party says proposals to push forward user pays water metering will unleash a torrent of resistance from angry Dunedinites.

The Otago Daily Times today reported that Dunedin City Council has warned getting water for free is a concept the public "needs to get away from".

Alliance Party spokesperson Victor Billot says that the Dunedin City Council "needs to get away from the concept of ramming through right-wing user pays policies with no mandate."

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink - and the people of Dunedin will not be drinking the toxic brew that this Council has concocted."

Mr Billot says the move towards user pays water is driven by the fact the Council has embarked on massive and unnecessary "glamour" projects such as the Stadium.

They would now try to squeeze the citizens through more user pays services – something that has been repeatedly predicted by many critics of the Council in the last several years.

"If Dunedin City Council can no longer afford to pay for the basics like water, we know why."

He says in the end, any decision on the future of water was neither for the current Council or bureaucrats to cook up, as there was no mandate from the people of Dunedin for change.

Mr Billot says there is a widespread sense in the city that the Dunedin City Council had lost the plot and was operating as if it owned Dunedin, as opposed to being the servant of the people.

He says once water supplies had started off down the slippery slope of "market forces", it would be a process that would be very hard to stop and could lead to profiteering or privatization in the future.

Mr Billot says the use of environmental reasons to justify water metering was a "greenwash" and there was no major problem with Dunedin water use that could not be solved by public conservation measures.

"To use finite resources as the camouflage for this proposal is frankly dishonest. All metering will do is ration by wealth. For those on fixed or low incomes, user pays water will add a significant burden at a time when the costs of the basic necessities of life are already rising faster than incomes."

Mr Billot says comments from council managers that public attitudes had "matured" and water metering was "equitable" had no basis in fact and were subjective views based on the personal bias of a few unelected staff members.

"Most Dunedin people are happy with the system as it is, they are the owners and the stewards of this resource, and they will make the political decision about how it is managed."