Local Water Done Well

LOCAL WATER DONE WELL: EXPOSING THE TRUNKS THROUGH THE LEAVES

Time for a metaphor disguised as a thought experiment.

Picture a room of 12 people tasked with voting on whether to bring back the death penalty. Now suppose those 12 people were deadlocked: six for, six against. Now imagine one voter (who had voted in the affirmative) was then tasked with casting the deciding vote. The result? The death penalty comes back, without a true majority.

Now imagine a secondary vote relating to how the death penalty should be administered; another branch of the same "decision tree". The options? Lethal injection or some other way. The people vote again, with lethal injection finding favour 8-4.

Now imagine another room inside a building 10.3km to the northeast, this time comprising 10 people. And imagine they were also tasked with voting on whether to bring back the death penalty, ever so slightly afterwards. Imagine word leaks into the second room relaying the events that had just unfolded in the first. Now, ask yourself this: If the person conveying that message wanted to accurately describe what had happened, what would they say? Would they say the vote to bring back the death penalty had been split and carried by a tiebreaking vote, and that a secondary vote had delivered a two-thirds majority in favour of lethal injection? Or would they simply say the people in the first room had voted 8-4 in favour of killing criminals with needles?

Now, for the fun of it, imagine there was a once proud institution tasked with informing the public about what had happened inside those two rooms. What would be the best way to go about that? Would they attend one or both meetings, then ask follow-up questions of voters on either side of the debate in real time? Or would they wait a day or two and then merely watch a replay of the meeting inside the second room on YouTube? What if the person tasked with relaying to those in the second room what had happened in the first had opted, whether by honest mistake or wilful omission, to not mention the first vote split 6-6? Would our YouTube scribe know that 12 out of 22 voters split across the two rooms had, in fact, voted against the death penalty?

That's the thing with "decision trees" isn't it?

Sometimes, if you don't care to look closely enough, you can't see the trunks for the leaves.

This is, of course, almost precisely what occurred in Tauranga this week in council meetings in which TCC and WBOP councillors voted on Local Water Done Well. WBOP's "decision-tree", proposed by Councillor Grainger, delivered two outcomes: WBOP preferred a multi-council CCO for waters due to Mayor James Deyner breaking a 6-6 tie AND that given a multi-council approach had been decided upon, that TCC was WBOP's preferred partner (8-4). To simply report, whether as a WBOP staff member, a TCC staff member or as a journalist, that WBOP opted by a two-thirds majority for a multi-council CCO with TCC is either ignorance or negligence.

One other option is possible, I suppose.

It could very well have been both.

" Local Water Down Well"

With the Governments directive our water vote was not what Staff and some elected members wanted.

Christine Jones provided a update on the status of Tauranga City Council's water service delivery decision-making process, explaining legal obligations, tangata whenua engagement, public consultation, and the next steps required by central government.

She emphasized that a new model is mandatory, and staff have laid out a step-by-step path to help Council reach a resolution.

The Councillors who needed to pull Staffs reins in did so in a way that was the first sign of honest and diligent representation we have seen.

Democracy was alive on 5 August 2025 when we saw a smart move, showing staff that rolling over was no longer the way forward.

We do not need a joint CCO or a CCO at all. The Govts aim is to deliver water cost effectively - The CCO model isnt.

Glen Crowther - Tauranga City Councillor is after facts not fairy tails.