NZ Government to End Centralised Water Resource Control, Ratepayers Could Face Higher Bills

The race politics aspects of Three Waters ensured it would be met with opposition; now Councils will have to find billions of dollars.

Flood water flows through cracks in the road surface on Udy Street, Petone, after a bout of severe weather in Wellington, New Zealand, on Nov. 15, 2016. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has confirmed that Labour’s Three Waters legislation will be repealed by Feb. 23, restoring local water assets—and the bill for replacing them—back to local councils.

The coalition government’s alternative, called Local Water Done Well, will then be implemented by progressing two further bills through Parliament.