Watercare indulges in DEI discrimination while infrastructure cracks at the seams

Auckland-based ACT MP Simon Court is challenging Watercare on its discriminatory procurement policies as the entity fails to build the pipes and pump stations desperately needed by Auckland residents.

In 2021, Watercare adopted a race quota for its procurement spending, with a target of 5% of annual procurement spend going to Māori-owned businesses by 2025. Progress toward this goal is tracked in each of Watercare’s annual reports.

Now, companies bidding for contracts to deliver Watercare are being asked to disclose whether they are Māori-owned (or Pasifika- or woman-owned). In despair, some have asked ACT to blow the whistle.

“The ethnicity disclosure is ‘optional’ but the message to suppliers is clear,” says Mr Court. “Watercare cares more about your ethnic background than your ability to install infrastructure at a fair price.

“If Watercare wants to improve outcomes for Māori, it should focus on doing its job. Māori families at risk of homelessness actually need to see new houses built, and that requires new infrastructure.

“In 2015, Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan revealed where 900,000 new homes were expected to go. Watercare’s job was to build the pipes and pump stations to enable those homes to be built.

“A decade on, Watercare has dropped the ball big time.

“Like so many other council and government agencies Watercare jumped on the DEI bandwagon. Watercare decided the racial and gender profile of its suppliers was more important than getting enough people to dig the trenches and lay the pipes.

“This is unacceptable behaviour from a Water Services Entity that has a monopoly on service provision in the Auckland region, pays its CEO and senior managers $4 million per annum, and spends hundreds of millions per annum with local and international suppliers.

“This grates me so much as an Aucklander and a civil engineer. Other major projects like the roll out of the UFB network delivered millions of connections to homes around the country over a decade including in complex urban areas like Auckland.

“At last count, Watercare failed to deliver 60 percent of projects on agreed timelines. Cumulatively, assuming they have underspent by $100-$200 million per annum against their own targets, they have failed to deliver $1-2 billion worth of vital infrastructure under the Unitary Plan.

“This means that tens of thousands of homes in areas like Hibiscus Coast, Redhills, Papakura, and Ōtara cannot be built in the next decade as there is simply not enough water and wastewater capacity for a growing city.

“Does Watercare not realise that Aucklanders and all New Zealanders are sick of this DEI crap and expect their government and councils to get on with delivering basic services above all else?

“That is why I am writing to Watercare and the Mayor of Auckland – responsible for this organisation – asking for this discrimination against suppliers to stop. Watercare need to convince Aucklanders of two things immediately: why are they not simply another DEI-infested council department, and, what on earth are they going to do to catch up and deliver the infrastructure they’ve failed to?”