Tiaki Wai has welcomed the Commerce Commission’s enhanced information disclosure framework. Greater transparency and rigour will help customers, councils and communities understand how investment decisions are being made and how performance is improving over time. The organisation will remain focused on delivering safe, reliable and affordable water services across the region.

Tiaki Wai Board Chair Will Peet said the new requirements reflected the scale of the task Tiaki Wai inherited on 1 July, and the importance of rebuilding public confidence through transparency.

“It’s natural our customers want to know what’s going on, how decisions are being made and that their money is being well spent. We welcome this decision from the Commission because it helps to provide that certainty for communities.”

Mr Peet said Tiaki Wai had engaged constructively with the Commission throughout its consultation, and that several of the changes in the final decision reflected the organisation’s submissions.

“Good regulation and good governance pull in the same direction. We made a number of suggestions during consultation, which shows the process working as it should.”

“We have been open from the start that prices will need to rise to address historic underinvestment — that is already reflected in our Water Services Strategy. We are well on the way with the foundational work for our second Water Services Strategy which will build in a much tighter view now that we are up and running properly as of 1 July.”

Mr Peet was also frank about the trajectory ahead. Wellington’s network has been in decline for many years, he said, and honesty required acknowledging that recovery would take time.

“We inherited a network that has been going backwards for a long time, and we can only rebuild it at a certain pace — you cannot safely dig up a whole region at once.”

He said the disclosure requirements would not, on their own, resolve the challenges facing the organisation, but were part of a broader programme to restore the network and rebuild trust.

A “thank you” to Tiaki Wai for sending this article to The Upper Hutt Connection.

12/08/26