Wellingtonians are divided on whether to pay higher water bills to improve infrastructure, with a survey showing strong public concern about affordability and environmental safety amid ongoing wastewater issues like the Moa Point spill.
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Verbatim segments from politicians speaking on podcasts and radio shows about this topic. Sourced via the voice-reference library — each speaker has been confirmed manually from their voice clip. Click play to stream the original audio from the publisher, pre-seeked to the moment the quote starts.
One of the easiest games in town is currently being played in Wellington. So you've got the water company, they've got a nice new Maori name, and they're going to start sending out specific water bills to everyone, which upon first blush, if you've never got a water bill before, seems a lot, the average being about $2,500 a year. But then, the upsize is good to know I would have thought what things actually cost, as opposed to having it, you know, all hidden away in a mass bill called rates where no one's got any idea what's going on. The real scrap, though, is over the pay packets. They in this new company are a lot bigger. Now the chair of the board gets $110,000, they used to get $60,000. The members of the board get $60,000, they used to get $30,000. The bloke who carries the can is the CEO, he gets $645,000 a year. Now toss a few figures like that about the place and suddenly you've got a lot of angst, a lot of upset. But here is your real world issue. You either want decent people for the job, any job, or you don't. Now I don't need to tell you that previously a lot of people doing Wellington's water work were clearly useless. Useless. In a small and not complete way, money fixes that. It is not to say big money automatically gets brilliance, but it is fair to say if you pay rubbish, you will get rubbish. The old community contribution, the give something back line, only carries you so far. You tend to get do-gooders, not professionals. And can I be even slightly more fiscally acerbic by suggesting even at these new inflated numbers, you're not exactly paying top dollar. I mean $645,000. dollars is a lot of money if you're in year 13 or you're a teacher or you're a journalist but it's not too much to be a CEO and even less when you're the CEO of an entity that's under tremendous pressure and publicly accountable by a population that will want to lynch you if you fail. See the public services as a rule underpays and that in part is why the public services in the state it's in. Cheap in general is no way to run business. Sign contracts, accept quotes or operate your life. Worry less about the money, more about the outcomes. If Wellington had never had a water worry, no burst pipes, no contamination, no poo in the harbour, and the bloke running the place was earning two million and gave you that, what a bargain.
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transparent pricing as a public service upgrade
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