The Government has refused to rule out taking over council water assets, despite overwhelming opposition across the country.

It wants to amalgamate water services of 67 councils into four water service entities.

On Monday, Christchurch City Council including 8 Labour councillors, rejected the Government’s three waters reform, saying the case doesn’t stack up for Christchurch.

In Parliament yesterday National MP Barbara Kuriger asked Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta if she would make three waters reforms compulsory for councils.

Mahuta wouldn’t answer the question.

Instead, she said “there is a significant challenge with huge costs looming on councils that we need to find a different way, the status quo will not work.”

Earlier in the house, Mahuta said “sadly, local elected leaders with very good information are asking their community to make a decision based on less information. I’d hoped that by working in partnership with local government, the conversation with the community would focus on key challenges with the current system so they understand why the discussion was underway.“

“Importantly, we’ve also worked to ensure that there is sound transitional planning for workforce continuity for those in the sector. Sadly, while councils have received this information, the community has not, and we were going to work together to ensure that they did. I’m mindful that a partnership works both ways” Mahuta said.

On Monday, Labour Councillor Yani Johanson said “Christchurch out of anyone should know that getting central government involved with bigger agencies and entities, does not provide efficiencies, we’ve had over a decade of that post-earthquake and what we saw was massive costs, massive salaries for chief executives, complete lack of accountability back to the people of the city, I’m strongly against what’s proposed here.”

Councillor Sam MacDonald was scathing of the reforms saying it showed “how fundamentally flawed this model really is. I think what’s really alarming with this is that there’s been a range of advertisers, millions of dollars spent on consultants. The government doesn’t understand how councils operate.”

He said “they don’t respect local democracy, and they don’t want to look at other options, and I think that should alarm every person in Christchurch. It’s a real threat to I think the way in which we operate.”