Our assets are being handed over to Taiki Wai, yet not listed in any available document, also not labelled as “public excluded” . The transfer documents in the Agendas state that they are listed in other documents.  Yet we cannot find them!  Why are they not listed?

Council meeting agenda come out no more than 5 working days before a Council meeting.  OIA’s can take 20 working days for a response.  Yet here in Upper Hutt our Mayor/Chair of most meetings has made it clear that public forum is not a question and answers session, nor can you speak if a previous speaker has spoken on a topic.  Even though we believe our UHCC Standing orders are being broken and so is the code of conduct.

Here is an example of why we ask the media to get involved in this.  This is OUR’s (The Public’s) and we are the ones standing Guarantors for billions of dollars, and not just in the Wellington region.

On the 1^st April 2026 a community member in her 80’s submitted to council to highlight the fact that there is not enough information on how the new Tiaki Wai and Council Rates Direct Debt’s would work. Our Chair/Mayor broke her down and embarrassed her to the point she no longer had any path of submission to our council.

40:35 Public Forum – Elaine Chaney.  Listen carefully to the first few comments from the Chair.  Overall Chair speaks for just over a minute of the just over 3 minute submission

According to Council website “Public forum is intended to give members of the community an opportunity to raise matters of interest or concern with elected members. It is not, however, a question-and-answer session, and the Chair has responsibility for managing the meeting, including time limits, relevance, and the orderly conduct of the public forum.”

Yet after taking this into account we have replied to Council with the following. 

Taking this into account, it is also the chair’s responsibility to treat submitters with respect, not fabricate rules/standing orders and to seek clarification from submitter if uncertain. This was not done. Initially, as Ms Chaney is moving to the Public Forum table to speak the chair stated “ Um so Elaine is also speaking to agenda item nine. Um and welcome if you have similar points or um if you’ve made points to us in the past um you can refer back to those.” This invites Ms Chaney to raise anything what she has previously sent through to council.

The point of sharing is that on Wednesday at UHCC full Council Meeting we believe we would be shut down.

Most councils have debt with and lend from the LGFA (Local Government Funding Authority), and as a borrower are part of the agreement that they are standing guarantor for the debt LGFA arranges. As Tiaki Wai and other water entities around NZ will all be borrowing from LGFA, councils and effectively us, are standing guarantor. LGFA current debt level: $30.36 billion Tiaki Wai Revenue 26/27 reported estimate – $385 million. 27/28 estimates with 28% increase – $493 million. Borrowing potential $1.93 billion in 26/27 and estimated $2.46 billion in 27/28, and that WE, YOU stand guarantor for. Then multiply this by 19 New Water Organisations around NZ – 12 in the North Island, 7 in the South Island.

Hutt City voted on their transfer agreement on the 13th of May and it doesn’t have the list of Land parcels being transferred to Tiaki Wai. Page 97,98, 99 Blank.. https://huttcity.infocouncil.biz/Open/2026/05/HCC_13052026_AGN_6411_AT_

Upper Hutt City Council Pg 16 specifies Land Parcels being handed to Tiaki Wai. Pg 102-103 shows the parcels are not listed but stated they are published elsewhere. Yet cannot be found. https://www.upperhutt.govt.nz/files/assets/public/v/3/meetings/2026/cycle-2/council-agenda-20260520.pdf

Why is there an apparent lack of transparency with the communities on assets which they own and are being handed over to an organisation which we are then standing guarantor for?

A “thank you” to NZ Empowered for sending this letter to The Upper Hutt Connection.

19/05/26