Auckland water prices to rise 9.5 per cent
Watercare’s board of directors confirmed the increase from July 1, which follows the price path approved by the board of directors in December 2020. It was included in Auckland Council’s Long-Term Plan which was formally adopted in June 2021, after public consultation.
Watercare chief executive Dave Chambers said since the board approved the price path the organisation has “faced significant challenges”, including “very high rates of inflation and extreme weather events ranging from drought to the recent floods.”
“However, we know many people are facing financial strain, so it’s important to us to keep price increases as low as possible,” he said.
“This is why we’re sticking with the price path we communicated in 2021 as part of Auckland Council’s Long-Term Plan.”
Chambers said Watercare has been able to keep costs manageable by reducing its overall head count through attrition.
Infrastructure growth charges will also rise by 8 per cent.
The price for 1000 litres of water will now go from $1.825 to $1.998, while 1000 litres of wastewater will go from $3.174 to $3.476. The fixed wastewater charge will go from $264 a year to $289.
“In real terms, households with average water use will pay about $2.20 more per week,” Chambers said.
“We encourage our customers to get in touch with us if they’re struggling to pay their bills. We can work out flexible payment plans or refer them to the Water Utility Consumer Assistance Trust, which we fund to support customers suffering genuine hardship.”
He said during the past year Watercare has been “focused heavily on reducing our controllable costs.”
“Without this work, we would have been looking at a price increase of 10.7 per cent, so it’s thanks to this drive to find efficiencies that we can keep the increase to 9.5 per cent.
“One of the ways we’ve made savings is by reducing our overall head count through attrition. We’ve gone from having 1255 full-time equivalent staff in June 2022, to 1198 in January 2023.”
A recent review of Watercare’s Asset Management Plan identified a forecast capital expenditure increase of $3.6 billion over the next 10 years.
“This takes our forecast capital expenditure to more than $13 billion over the next 10 years. To fund this, we’ll need to increase the amount we borrow,” Chambers said.
“In the next financial year alone we’ll be spending more than $1b on infrastructure projects that cater for growth, replace ageing assets and deliver better outcomes for the environment. These include completing a new 45-million-litre water storage reservoir at Redoubt Rd, which significantly boosts our water supply resilience, and continuing to tunnel our Central Interceptor wastewater pipe between central Auckland and our Māngere Wastewater Treatment Plant.”
The announcement comes after the axe started to fall on jobs across the Auckland Council group to address a $295 million hole in Mayor Wayne Brown’s first budget.
Eke Panuku Development Auckland confirmed about 20 positions are initially going at the property development arm.
Council chief executive Jim Stabback, with a staff of 7200 and an annual wages bill of more than $530m, has also confirmed job losses are looming.
Stabback and the chief executives of council-controlled organisations (CCOs) are having to trim services and jobs in response to the $295m budget hole brought about by rising costs from high inflation and interest costs and falling revenue from things like public transport fares.
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Poll: Would you use a pet cemetery?
Dave Stephens has created a pet cemetery on his land.
The 10-acre site in Albany, Auckland, features graves nestled among beautifully manicured gardens and unique art pieces, offering a serene space where visitors can pay their respects in their own way.
Is a local pet cemetery something you think you would use? Share your thoughts below.
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31.3% Yes
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67.1% No
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1.5% Other - I'll share below
Neighbourly Q&A: Consumer rights with CAB's Andrew Hubbard
What can you do if you buy something that breaks soon after you buy it? It's time for another helpful Q&A.
This week we have Andrew Hubbard from Citizens Advice Bureau New Zealand (CABNZ) who will be answering your questions about your consumer rights.
A little bit about Andrew:
Dr Andrew Hubbard is deputy chief executive of Citizens Advice Bureau New Zealand (CAB) and loves working for the CAB so much that he’s been there for more than fifteen years.
Andrew believes in the difference people can make working together in the community and loves being able to support the work of the more than 2000 CAB volunteers across the motu. Andrew’s background is in policy and he’s been actively involved in consumer issues for the fifteen years he’s been at the CAB.
Andrew and the CAB team are ready to answer your questions about your consumer rights. This might be questions about when you can get a refunds, your rights when buying via Facebook or overseas, product delivery issues and what to do if a retailer won't sort a problem out for you. Ask away!
Andrew will be here live on Wednesday at 9.30am, but go ahead, and add your question below now ⇩
10 Mistakes Job Hunters Make WAY Too Often
1. Oversharing. Sometimes, it is fascinating to debrief candidates after interviews and find out some of the things they say. One was asked about who he works with and described them as “slobs and Indians.” Someone actually thought that it was a good idea to be insulting and racist on an interview. Amazing.
2. Being Unprepared. I started in recruiting more than 40 years ago before moving into coaching. Back in The Stone Ages, it was hard to research employers. You actually had to go to a library and use microfiche or read original newspapers. Unless you were interviewing with a senior executive with the firm or with the PR head, you could never obtain any information about a person you were meeting with in advance of your interview. LinkedIn and Google make things much easier, don’t they? Yet there are people who arrive unprepared, knowing nothing about their potential employer or the hiring manager(s) they are meeting with. Insane!
3. Lying. It used to be hard and take time in order to be found out. Your new employer would have to type a letter to your former employer who have to look up information in file cabinets in order to substantiate your previous dates and salary. Now, they start off by comparing what you uploaded to their applicant tracking system the last time you were looking for a job and applied to them to see that you have covered up that previous employer or are lying about your salary. You can be disqualified before speaking with anyone. And it happens all the time and no one will ever tell you.
4. Forgetting/Ignoring the Original Question and Babbling On. When qualifying people or doing mock interviews, job hunters will have done so many interviews that they clairvoyantly believe they know what the interviewer is looking for so they go off on this long monologue about what they’ve done and how they went about doing it in response to the question, “Tell me about yourself.” I remember listening to someone for about 5 minutes, and asking, “By any chance, do you remember my original question?” They didn’t.
5. Seeming Angry. Like a lover scorned, they arrive at their interview ready to complain and moan about their previous manager, co- workers, how they have been mistreated and more. Like a date who is stuck pretending to listen, your interviewer is calculating when the right time is to end their interview.
6. Not Knowing “The Single Best Question You Should Ask on Any Interview” and When To Ask It. Interviews are normally constructed for a hiring manager or HR professional to elicit information from you at their pace in ways that don’t help you. Not knowing the one question that levels the playing field and allows you to talk about what you’ve done that matters to them and not just talk about what you’ve done is a colossal mistake.
7. Saying Different Things to Different People You Interview With. Imagine telling people radically different or subtly things about your role, responsibilities and your level of impact or success. Do you think people don’t compare notes?
8. Arriving Late (or Missing the Interview Altogether) and Not Acknowledging It. Things happen but you acknowledge and apologize for being late. You apologize and explain your (perhaps) confusion that caused you to miss the interview. Trust me. No one will hire you (although they might re-schedule you) unless you acknowledge the previous ) confusion that caused you to miss the interview. Trust me. No one will hire you (although they might re-schedule you) unless you acknowledge the previous “bad behavior.” In just lingers around the relationship stinking things up.
9. Asking Stupid Questions.
“Do you give a drug test?”
“Do you do a background check?“
“Do you have any other jobs available?
10. Creating a Weak First Impression Whether the weak impression is created because you have a soft handshake (shaking hands with a fish), your hands are cold or are sweaty, your body language is poor, you’re dressed poorly by the standards of the firm you’re interviewing with or some other reason, if your first impression is weak it is hard to recover and win the interview.
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