Wellington sewage spill: Why a closed-door inquiry won’t fix Moa Point

Tuesday, 10 February 2026

Eugene Doyle is a south coast resident and environmental advocate

OPINION: The latest failure in our water infrastructure, described by those in charge as “as bad as it gets” and “catastrophic”, obviously necessitates an inquiry.

In 2020, following a staggering series of water infrastructure failures in Wellington (geysers erupting in streets, water mains failing in the CBD, faecal contamination of streams and bays, sometimes more than 500 times the permissible levels), the Mayoral Taskforce on Three Waters was convened and spent nearly a year examining what went wrong and how to fix it.

Many of its excellent recommendations have gone unaddressed to this day.

As a member of that taskforce – the community representative – I know that a serious flaw was baked into the process from the outset: lack of transparency. I also know, having been a taskforce member for that year, that there was no good reason why our meetings were held entirely behind closed doors, why the media was fed information exclusively via the mayor and the officials, nor why the taskforce members were required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

This secrecy robbed the community of the ability to build knowledge of what was really happening to their infrastructure and the many reasons it was failing. It denied citizens access to useful discussions about how we can move from a city that perennially fails its citizens when it comes to protecting our environment and our infrastructure.

There were moments in our meetings when it would have been appropriate to move in-camera, excluding the public and the media, but they were the exception and largely occurred as we neared the end of the process. A fierce contest, for example, broke out between taskforce members and the council officers; the latter wishing to tightly control what was said in our name. They wanted a report which lacked steel.

We won the battle and wrote our own report in the end; they won the war by ignoring or only partially implementing our recommendations!

A better informed public would have helped us achieve an outcome that would have put our city and our water infrastructure in better shape.

I support mayor Andrew Little's push for a ministerial inquiry (which has more teeth than a standard council review). I am sorry, however, that he only said the report’s findings will be made public. I saw no clear commitment to a process that brings affected communities to the table, particularly those on the south coast. We want transparency, not a blueprint for future failures.

My experience on the taskforce confirmed that our hardworking councillors don’t have the time to commit to fully representing the citizens in such processes. Their presence is important but insufficient.

Governments are the masters of launching inquiries. Such inquiries, behind closed doors, have the benefit (to them) of taking the heat out of the moment. The report is eventually released, after the evidence has been carefully curated, and any “commercially sensitive” bits or inconvenient truths have been massaged into shape. Such processes ensure the window for public engagement is narrowed and another opportunity for democracy and broader accountability has been avoided.

We can do better than that. I call for an investigation that is both public and includes community representation.

By the time the terms of reference for the inquiry are written, I sincerely hope that these issues will be fully addressed to the satisfaction of the citizens of this city who have been grievously let down by all those responsible for maintaining our water infrastructure and protecting both our environment and our democracy.