Posted on 11-6-2003
Water
Group Ups Pressure
"A sleeping giant is about to awaken - a sleeping giant which
has never
woken before!" Water Pressure Group Media Spokesperson
Penny Bright warned Auckland City Councillors at submission
hearings for
the 2003 - 2004 Annual Plan.
A huge wall hanging, listing 160 Avondale streets, was unfurled
- the
basis for an historic and unprecedented system of
street-based organisation that will be used for the first time
to
encourage thousands more Auckland City households to join the
boycott of
Metrowater's water services bills, which are crippling so many
Auckland
families.
Our vision is that by the time of the next Auckland City Council
elections,
there will be so many thousands of households not paying their
water bills
that an incoming Council will have no choice but to listen to
the direct
action of the people, and abolish Metrowater." Councillors present
were
given a copy of the Christchurch rates demand for a property
valued at
$235,000, whose combined annual rates and water services bill
totalled
$1540. The water component was $104, the wastewater (sewerage)
$154. Many,
many families in Auckland City are paying more than that every
3 months for
Metrowater's bills. "Christchurch residents have what we want.
Water meters
without user charges and water and wastewater charges based
on
property-based rates.
Over the Waikato water issue - we did research no one else had
done and
were denied speaking rights to pass on this information to Auckland
City
Councillors. Yet in today's news, arsenic levels higher than
those allowed
by World Health Organisation Standards are being found in untreated
Waikato
river water. Why are we not using water from the Waitakere and
Hunua
catchments which does not have these same levels of arsenic?
Why is 'best
raw water first' not being used?" she continued.
Auckland City Councillors present at this hearing, including
Mayor John
Banks and Deputy Mayor David Hay, appeared noticably subdued
as the
implications of such street-based organisation being used at
the next
Council election to advise the public of who had policy closest
to that of
the Water Pressure Group's, sank in. 'David Hay believed that
Metrowater's
'user charges' for water services were 'fairer''.' Try telling
that to the
big Polynesian families in Avondale, who are paying $700 per
year for
their rates and $1500 to $2000 per year for Metrowater's water
services
bills on top of their rates!"
__________________________________________
A follow-up public meeting to sign up Metrowater boycotters
and 'street
delegates' is being held tomorrow night: Wednesday 11 June
7.30pm Avondale Primary School Hall Crayford St West (The side
street
opposite the old 3 Guys site Great North Rd Avondale shopping
centre).
Those wishing to sign up as boycotters need to bring along their
last 4
Metrowater bills and their last rates bill, so a formal letter
of
dispute to Metrowater can be sent.
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