making auckland more expensive

The Residential Tenancies Act of 2004 doesn't exist. It should. It was going to happen. But it didn't. For whatever reason, the government isn't interested in passing their own laws. Which is why the Auckland Property Investors Association is calling for all landlords to force tenants to foot the entire Metrowater bill. If the Residential Tenancies Bill, introduced in 2001, has been passed this wouldn't happen.

This was made possible by a 2003 ruling allowing landlords to charge for wastewater, along with standard water.

I don't believe that the District Court Ruling was actually good law. Neither was the 1986 act, although legislators of the time couldn't have foreseen the current situation. The case law is on shaky grounds mainly because the legislation specifically enables

water provided to the premises on the basis of metered usage

which, by logic, excludes water leaving the premises on estimated (unmetered) outflow (non-use). But Judge Graham Hubble chose to allow a specific landlord to charge wastewater to his tenant.

The Association isn't being fair either. Despite the 2003 ruling, landlords can't force tenants to pay the whole bill. There are parts of the bill that are clearly the landlords responsibility, namely charges related to pipe maintenance for the Auckland area. While these are charged (erroneously) according to the amount of water used, it's doesn't count as 'water'. Landlords can't force tenants to pay the annual account charge either - although if Metrowater decided to charge separately for meter reading, tenants could be charged for that.

Labour desperately needs to sort this out. It isn't a sexy issue, and it isn't a populist one, but it does affect many people financially in their core constituency, including those on the lowest wages.

Metrowater also needs to sort it's own house out. It can't continue with dubious wastewater meterage, and it can't justify pipe upkeep against m3 used.

[update: it seems that the whole act is up for review, most likely leading to an entire rewrite of the act. An announcement about the review is expect later this year. Which means that tennants are likely to have to put up with three or four more years of harassment by landlords over water rates, that is if Labour wins the next election. Not good enough]