Tuesday’s Chorus: S&P's warning to National

The already-unpopular Three Waters policy was latched onto by groups such as ‘Voices for Freedom’, but National and councils may discover that pivoting away from the reforms has unintended consequences. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty Images

TL;DR: There are often unintended consequences when Governments pursue policies with the aim of not addressing the core issues. Two examples today include:

• the Labour and National focus on trying to push councils’ water assets off their balance sheets and councils’ balance sheets to avoid a difficult conversation with voters about higher taxes to pay for infrastructure needed for very -high population growth; and,

• their focus also on jointly pursuing a high-population-growth-driven strategy but pretending this year’s population growth was a ‘one-off’ to cope with temporary shortages.

These dual attempts to ignore the reality of high population growth without infrastructure spending has now led to a ratings agency warning of credit rating downgrades and a ‘temporary’ worker here for a decade with a happy employer being forced out to avoid any health issues costing taxpayers.

Paying subscribers can see more detail below the paywall fold and hear more of my analysis in the podcast above.

S&P’s warning to National on Three Waters