Council approach to Northland water debts callous - Greens

Northland Green MP Sue Bradford is outraged that the Far North District Council is going ahead with its plans to restrict water supply to some residents.

“This hard-hearted, fiscally-driven approach to what is essentially a symptom of poverty is totally unacceptable in a district that has the highest unemployment rate in New Zealand,” said Ms Bradford.

“I’m shocked that this comes at the same time the council is earning 11.7 per cent on water services while only spending 7 per cent. As always, children, the elderly and people with health problems will be the first to suffer in families where regular bathing or showers will no longer be possible.”

“Debt is a massive problem for many Northland residents who have spent years struggling to survive, caught between a minimal benefit system and low wages.  Their debt grows month-by-month and year-by-year when people live like this. Water debt is but one small part of it.

“The solution is not to restrict peoples’ water supply which will only exacerbate both physical and mental health problems. The council should be looking for wider solutions like making sure people are getting all the Government support to which they are entitled and ensuring they are actually adequately and appropriately housed.

“The newly elected Far North District Council should take a good hard look at itself and measure its fiscal duties against social responsibility.

‘Do our Mayor and Councillors really want to find themselves liable for increasing the hardship in which some Northland people live, or do they want to work alongside the many iwi and other community groups in Northland who are trying to find far more constructive solutions to problems caused by endemic poverty, unemployment and poor housing?

“The Green Party believes that water is a basic human need, and that the public supply of household water is a service, not a commodity to be sold for profit. While we also believe that we should conserve water as a precious resource, this does not mean that those who have been hardest hit by the last 20 years of economic restructuring should pay the price of endemic poverty with their and their children’s health and well-being.”

“I call on the Council to immediately rescind its plans to introduce water restrictions for debtors, and to work with all of us who care about this issue to find far more humane solutions to this problem.”

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