This bill repeals three Acts that established the Water Services Entities framework: the Water Services Entities Act 2022, the Water Services Legislation Act 2023, and the Water Services Economic Efficiency and Consumer Protection Act 2023.
Parliament advanced this bill under urgency (committee of whole house, first reading, second reading, third reading) — moving it through faster than usual, with less time than normal for public submissions.
These are claims MPs made in Parliament’s debate — not verified facts.
This bill repeals the previous government's "Three Waters" reforms, which had reorganised how drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services are delivered. It repeals the Water Services Entities Act 2022 and related legislation that would have taken these three water services off local councils and handed them to a small number of large, publicly owned regional water entities, run with shared council and mana whenua (iwi/Māori) governance arrangements. By repealing those Acts, the bill returns full ownership and responsibility for water infrastructure to individual local councils. It also puts transitional arrangements in place - winding up the new entities and bodies that were being established - and clears the way for a replacement approach (branded "Local Water Done Well") under which councils keep their assets but must show how they will fund and manage water services sustainably in future. The effect is to keep water services under direct local-council control.
Repealing Three Waters was a firm commitment in the National-ACT-NZ First coalition agreements and one of the new government's early priorities. Supporters argue the reforms stripped communities of local control over assets their ratepayers built and paid for, that the co-governance arrangements were undemocratic, and that decisions about local water should stay with elected councils accountable to residents. Opponents argue the reforms were designed to fix a real problem: many councils, especially small ones, face enormous bills to upgrade ageing pipes and treatment plants and meet environmental and drinking-water standards, and that pooling services into larger entities would have spread those costs and unlocked cheaper borrowing. They warn that returning responsibility to individual councils leaves underinvestment and affordability problems unresolved, potentially meaning higher rates or water charges and slower fixes to leaks and pollution.
See the Parliament.nz ↗ site for the full bill.