Well said Tova O'Brien - Three waters Fallout

[Lilith7]

I suppose also the discussion in the other thread about context can be applied to three waters also - the $1.2B suggested as "wasteful spending", is only a fraction of the overall cost of this project estimated at what $185 Billion?

But now we can add in fragmentation of purchasing and the smaller scale from multiple councils, time delays in implementing because of lack of resourcing - I imagine the cost is also going to blowout significantly from the original cost...

But I also wonder how much of that $1.2B could actually be leveraged going forward?

The 1.2 billion dollars spent on 3 waters could have gone a long way to councils in need, sounds like a drop in the bucket going forward on what was planned to be spent. 
I think central government has a role to oversee how water infrastructure is managed however.

A better funding model would be where councils in need apply for central govt funding as necessary, but appoint a minister in charge of the oversight on how the money is spent, etc.

And if fragmentation of spending is an issue, that's a key role that the government could take, where they buy the supplies on behalf of councils to cut costs down. I could see that working well and would make economic sense.

It is a bit ironic that Wellington of all places has had some of the worst managed water infrastructure in the country.

That could likely work quite well & makes good sense...probably why it hasn't happened as yet.