Get rid of this council-they are clowns and are one of the worst in the world.

Have we not had enough rain recently..........conserve that if you are concerned!!

Important points to note:

Wellington doesn't have a water shortage. How do I know this? Well when was the last time they introduced water restrictions?

There is no evidence to suggest metering will reduce consumption. Wellingtonians already use less water than Aucklanders who are metered.

Maths - Meters cost $70m and provide no more water, New dam costs $140m and provides more water. More water is better than less water therefore we should put the $70m towards the dam which provides a benefit.

Principles - We already pay rates to the council to provide this service. If there isn't enough money in the budget for core services stop funding nice to haves like sports centres and festivals.

Metrowater in Auckland recently increased the water price because usage had gone down and they weren't making as much money as they wanted - this is what happens when water meters are made compulsory.

Wellingtonians must not allow the council to force water meters onto us!

More retarded propaganda designed to make you feel bad, and so you feel good about being looted by multinational corporations. And don't even try to use water tanks they will impose a bylaw that will charge you a yearly tax for the privilege of having one, oh hang on I think they already have that one covered.

I don't mind paying for water too because I think we all take everything for granted and could do with some lessons in not being so wasteful. Last year, my neighbours had a split pipe about half way down our shared driveway. I rung Upper Hutt city council about it and they said that because the leak was on private land, they didn't want anything to do with it and they didn't consider that an emergency. We found out after 4 days over 3,000,000 litres of water had been wasted. What would the point of been having water meters when the leak was from the road to the house where the meter would've been, who would've been responsible for that waste then. The owner of the property didn't care, neither did the council, the tennant was in no position to afford an after hours plumber. But I say bring them on !!

A close reading of the article says the population is increasing inexorably. Therefore a dam is inevitable in the future no matter how much we cut back. The logic here is we should cut back to avoid a dam. In that case the end result some time in the future is we all consume little to no water to allow for an unsustainable population growth. Since we all have a minimum need for water there are two choices in the long run, build a dam or limit the population. Since the human race cannot seem to face the need to halt population growth then we'll need a new dam. Since a new dam is inevitable sometime, arguments to prevent building one are erroneous (Think transmission Gully here). Considering the $70 million to put in water meters to avoid a dam we'll eventually need is half the cost of a dam then we may as well build one and face the inevitable. This brings me to reluctantly agree with Arthur #4, the only real reason for meters can be a hidden agenda for water privatisation.

How could life lines of a country such as Water, Power, phone.... be private assets?

I don't see a problem. Put in meters. The first annual 120 kilolitres per household is free (+ 10 kilolitres per child). After that you're being wasteful and a rising scale of charges apply. It's got nothing to do with privatisation. It's all about not being needlessly wasteful and not needing that dam.

I can't help wondering whether this is yet another farce to get more money out of us. Recently I phoned the Council on a Friday that water was running out of a council toby near my house. After enquiring how bad it was they decided to leave it running until Monday!! On my questioning the water waste I was told that 'we don't have to worry about that in the winter, only in the summer'. I think the council's accounting is that it is cheaper to let the water running than pay someone extra time to drive here and turn it off. One sees this sort of waste all the time. Don't ever talk about meters!

I suspect there is a strong business case and quiet agenda being generated for the privatisation of water. Big business will not be attracted to supplying and charging for water if we don't have meters so we are being softened up with the Trojan horse of conservation to get and accept meters. Whilst on the surface it all seems innocuous and for a 'good cause', once big business controls our water it'll be the power companies fiasco all over again. We'll be price gouged and ripped off for one of life's most necessary commodities and since we have to have it, we'll just pay and pay and pay.

On the other hand some people are just plain wasters and need convincing to cut back like the idiots who run sprinklers for hours every day every summer. Council patrols giving warnings and fines would be a better way to go. We seem to have them scouring the suburbs for illegally parked cars and vehicles with no warrant and registration and so on so it would not be much extra effort. We must avoid meters where ever and whenever possible.