Council leaves anti-three waters reform group over its 'emotional' reactions

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from Otago News

In February, almost all of Queenstown's district councillors were keen to join anti-Three Waters reform group. Two months later, almost all are keen to leave.

The Queenstown Lakes District Council is the latest to leave the group, with councillors citing concerns for their ongoing relationship with iwi and the group’s strategy as reasons for changing their minds.

Deputy mayor Calum MacLeod​ voted in favour of joining Communities 4 Local Democracy (C4LD) in February, but at Thursday’s full council meeting and to Stuff on Friday, he said he had since seen “multiple red flags”.

He did not agree with the group’s reaction to the Three Waters working party's mahi, and felt their negativity was for negativity's sake.

The Three Waters working party involves local government leaders and Local Government New Zealand working with the Government to come up with compromises within the proposed Three Waters reform.

C4LD was founded in December by local government leaders who did not believe comprises were possible, and wanted to come up with alternative reforms for the Government to consider.

MacLeod felt C4LD's press releases and attitude towards the working party had been “emotional”, and instead of doing the “hard yards” of investigating what was wrong with its work, they were against it because “they didn't like it”. Continue reading here.