Speed Up the Clean-Up

Auckland beaches are too often black flagged - unsafe for swimming or any form of recreation. This means that when you take your kids swimming or launch a boat, you could be exposed to dangerous bugs from raw sewage overflows.

The average Auckland household will pay Councils Watercare $1224 this year, increasing to $2261 by 2031.

ACT believes it is unfair that people who pay water charges on top of council rates should have to swim and play in water contaminated by raw sewage.
A screenshot of Auckland's dirty beaches. Photo credit: Safeswim

Many of these spills are from what councils call “engineered overflow points” – in other words – they are designed to dump raw sewage into waterways and into our harbour when the system can’t cope. This is not limited to periods of heavy rain - many overflows occur after just a light shower and far more frequently than we might think.

The Labour Government pushed through an expensive, racially divisive and inefficient Three Waters reform, which is so complicated they recently announced it will be delayed from 2024 until 2026. The delays mean that very little will be done to clean up our beaches and harbour under Labour.

According to a recent council survey, more than two-thirds of us rate clean waterways and beaches as our most important “must-have”. The black flags of Safeswim show where investments are a “must-have”.

ACT proposes a practical Water Infrastructure Plan to speed up the clean-up.

Return $1.2 billion each year to local councils, a half-share of the GST collected by the Government on all new builds.

Delivering urgently needed major projects through Public-Private Partnerships between councils and developers, attracting investment from financial entities such as KiwiSaver funds, ACC, and iwi.

Establish long term 30-year Central Government-Local Government Partnership agreements to plan water infrastructure upgrades tailored to specific regions.

ACT’s plan would allow communities to retain control of water assets, and speed up the clean-up.

Sign the petition to support ACTs practical Water Infrastructure Plan.

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