Minister’s foreword

Over the past year, the Government has taken several steps to implement Local Water Done Well, the Coalition Government’s plan for financially sustainable locally delivered water infrastructure and services. These reforms recognise the importance of retaining local decision making and flexibility for communities, while providing incentives and regulatory oversight to improve levels of investment and performance.

The Local Government Water Services Bill (the Bill) will be introduced to the House of Representatives in late 2024, which will include a new economic regulation and consumer protection regime for local government water services suppliers, to be implemented by the Commerce Commission (the Commission) under Part 4 of the Commerce Act 1986 (Commerce Act).

I am committed to equipping the Commission with a range of tools to promote sufficient revenue recovery, and efficient investment and maintenance so that water services meet regulatory requirements and are delivered at a quality that communities expect. The Commission’s role will be critical to safeguarding consumer interests.

To provide peace of mind to Kiwis that we are getting value for money from our water services, we are proposing to implement a new levy to fund the Commission’s new role. After the Bill passes, it is expected that this will be applied to regulated water service suppliers under the Commerce Act.

I want to hear your views on a proposed levy design to recover the cost of the economic regulation regime and ways the levy design could be improved to reflect the principles of equity, efficiency (which includes simplicity), justifiability, and transparency.

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