14603 (2025). Tangi Utikere to the Minister of Local Government

14603 (2025). Tangi Utikere to the Minister of Local Government: What additional funding or support, if any, does the Minister plan to provide to councils facing increased borrowing costs due to credit rating downgrades?

Hon Simon Watts: The changes to infrastructure funding and financing tools to support housing growth, announced in February, will make it easier for councils to effectively recover the costs of enabling infrastructure for urban growth. A shift to development levies, and changes to targeted rates and to the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act will make it easier and simpler for councils to fund and finance enabling infrastructure for housing. The Government has provided a range of structural and financing tools to ensure councils can access the long-term debt required for investment in water services infrastructure. Local Government Funding Agency (LGFA) has confirmed that it will provide financing to support water council-controlled organisations (CCO) established under Local Water Done Well. The Government has moved quickly to implement Local Water Done Well to bring certainty to the sector and key stakeholders like ratings agencies that there is a path set out to ensure financial sustainability of water services. With greater use of LGFA finance to fund water infrastructure investment, councils and their water organisations will be cushioned from changes to their own creditworthiness by LGFA’s strong credit rating. LGFAs’ credit worthiness is supported by the liquidity facility provide to it by the Crown, which the Government recently agreed to increase.