“Proposed amendments to the Local Government Act 2002, now before parliament, pave the way for privatisation of water services” said DSC’s Waikato Regional President, Les Port.
“The potential transfer of ownership of water services is a likely consequence of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill as signalled in the provisions for Private Public Partnerships (PPPs) and Contracting Out, which will be extended from 15 years to 35 years, thus diminishing the ability, in skills and experience, of councils to provide staff to continue to operate in this capacity.
“Ownership and control would be lost to the taxpayer/ratepayer for this period, as publicly elected members of council would have no ability to challenge a private contractor. It opens the door for price-gouging, and significant decrease in the quality of water supply, as it is not in the interests of private companies to maintain infrastructure or remain price-conscious when they will essentially have a monopoly.
“The National Government continues to fail to learn from the past, and ignores the effects that privatization of water has had globally” said Mr Port.
Mr Port noted that New Zealand has a track record over the past two decades which demonstrates the negative effects of the privatization of our strategic assets.
“Water is a public utility and must remain in public ownership. It is obvious that there is an agenda to privatise New Zealand water supplies, with Auckland as the precedent setting example.
“Democrats for Social Credit opposes the privatisation of all key assets. The DSC has the economic intelligence to permanently negate the sale of assets in order to raise capital or increase liquidity, through sovereignty of our public money supply and the provision of reserve bank funding through low interest loans and overdrafts for infrastructure, control of cost pressure Inflation, and reduction of national debt.
“This method has been successfully employed in the past by the first Labour Government, whose support for and use of social credit monetary reform enabled New Zealand to recover from the 1930s depression ahead of most other western nations” concluded Mr Port.
Contact:
Les D Port Mobile 021 725791
President, Waikato Region
Democrats for Social Credit