Water Services Entities Bill

The closing date for submissions is 11.59pm Friday, 22 July 2022

The Chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Water Services Entities Bill.

This bill is the first of a suite of bills to reform New Zealand’s drinking-water, wastewater and stormwater services—the “three waters” services. Currently, these services are mostly provided by local councils.

The bill would create four publicly owned water services entities that will provide safe, reliable, and efficient water services in place of local authorities. Each water services entity would take on responsibility for delivering water services to a specific geographical area, from 1 July 2024.

The bill sets out how the water services entities would operate, and how they would be accountable to the public.

The committee is interested in understanding the public's views on local government ownership of water services and the governance structures of the proposed water services entities.

Submissions close at 11.59pm on Friday, 22 July 2022.

This bill is available online from the ‘Related links’ panel.

What do you need to know?

• Submissions are publicly released and published to the Parliament website. Only your name or organisation’s name is required on a submission. Please keep your contact details separate, as if they are included on the submission they will become publicly available when the submission is released.
• If you wish to include information of a private or personal nature in your submission you should discuss this with the clerk of the committee before submitting.
• If you wish to speak to your submission, please state this clearly.

Further guidance on making a submission can be found from the ‘How to make a submission’ link in the ‘Related documents’ panel.

If you have any questions about your submission or the submission process please contact the Committee Staff through the contact details provided on this page.