Murky waters: Wellington Water criticised for hiding contractor and wellness costs

Wednesday, 16 April 2025

Upper Hutt mayor Wayne Guppy says Wellington Water shouldn’t have suppressed so much information about how it’s spending public money.

As Wellington leaks, its water utility is spending ratepayer money at nutrition, wellness and skin care businesses – but key details of how much it spends on major contracts remains secret.

Ratepayer-funded Wellington Water, which has been under fire after a series of damning reports into its spending, has released a list of all its last year of contractors, consultants and suppliers under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act but would not reveal what it paid to each.

Most of the list was dominated by companies, such as Fulton Hogan and Wellington Pipelines, readily associated with an entity charged with looking after the region’s three waters infrastructure.

But the list also included the Wellbeing Workshop, which runs wellbeing workshops, webinars and online courses; skin clinic the Skin Institute, dieticians and nutritionists Mission Nutrition, mindfulness and mediation trainers Mindfulness Works, and what appears to be a Bay of Plenty-based avocado and orchard care service.

“There is certainly no commercial reason to not disclose such after-the-fact data,” says Wellington City councillor Tim Brown.

There was also a spend at the Speights Ale House and Petone Italian restaurant La Bella Italia, as well as espresso equipment company Espresso Ninja and a company called Dive & Ski.

Upper Hutt mayor Wayne Guppy said Wellington Water should have never suppressed so much information on its spending of public money, from major infrastructure contracts to mindfulness.

“If you can justify the spending, what are you hiding? … This just adds to the deceitfulness we have had from them for the past five years,” he said.

Spending at skin clinics and wellness companies seemed removed from the business of Wellington Water, he said.

“If it is staff welfare, tell people, ‘this is what we are spending your money on’.”

Wellington City Council environment and infrastructure chairperson Tim Brown said Wellington Water’s list was worthless without it also releasing how much was spent and on what.

“As a public body it is appropriate we do make such information public,” Brown said.

A huge fountain erupted in Aro Valley in 2021, sending torrents of water down Aro Street, as Wellingtonians began to be aware of the state of the city’s pipes.

“There is certainly no commercial reason to not disclose such after-the-fact data.”

Porirua mayor Anita Baker said it was difficult to judge the newly released spending without details of the amount and purpose.

'Clearly I would expect Wellington Water to be prudent with ratepayer money – just as all Wellingtonians would expect their local council to be similarly careful with what is spent,“ she said.

“I would also expect Wellington Water to invest in the wellbeing of its staff.”

Likewise, Wellington mayor Tory Whanau couldn’t comment on specific spending without Wellington Water giving the rationale.

“As a public entity, Wellington Water must spend ratepayer money carefully and transparently, with the core focus being to maintain and upgrade water infrastructure,” Whanau said.

Recent years have seen leaks become a regular feature in Wellington’s ageing pipe network and in 2023 it was estimated the region lost about 44% of all its treated water to leaks.

Wellington Water is owned by councils in Wellington, Upper and Lower Hutt, Porirua and South Wairarapa but, with its days likely numbered as a new water entity comes in, it has been under fire in a number of reports.

One recently found weakness in its financial systems and that it was at significant fraud risk, another found it was overpaying contractors, while one in 2023 found duplicated jobs and soaring costs.

It was revealed this week that the utility only just became aware of a 2021 report which “echoes some of the value for money issues” that came out in recent reports.