New water entities are being set up across the country. Faced with challenges around affordability and the need to address the long term infrastructure deficit, it’s been said that the success of the Local Water Done Well reforms will largely hinge on the experience, calibre and courage of new Council Controlled Organisation (CCO) board members.

In this episode of Water New Zealand’s Tawara o te Wai podcast, hosts Jon Reed and Emily Afoa discuss the water sector governance reform with two experienced watersector leaders - a former water utility CEO and past-President of Water New Zealand, Raveen Jaduram and Water New Zealand’s chief executive, Gillian Blythe.

Information disclosure will play a central role in improving the performance, accountability and long-term sustainability of Aotearoa New Zealand’s water services.

In this edition of Water New Zealand's Tāwara o te Wai podcast series, hosts Jon Reed and Emily Afoa put the spotlight on the Commerce Commission to unravel what the information disclosure aspect of economic regulation means for councils and suppliers.

They spoke with the Commission’s principal engineer, Emily Botje and economist, Tim Hewitt.

Attracting people to the water industry is becoming a key challenge - with thousands of extra skilled staff needed to fill job vacancies over the next 30 years.

In this Water New Zealand Tāwara o te Wai podcast, hosts Jon Reed and Emily Afoa spoke to two recent Water New Zealand award winners, Roanna Purcaru, who is the 2025 Young Water Professional of the Year and Jared Esaiah, who won the Trainee of the Year Award at this year’s Water New Zealand Conference and Expo.

They discussed what it was that drove these two successful employees to join the water sector and what could help attract more of the right people to work in water.

How do you grapple with issues facing a community that will be below sea level by the turn of the century?

It’s clear that something has to change.

Jonathan Rowe, from the South Dunedin Future programme says the community is now looking at six possible solutions – from fight to flight and a range of options in between.

He spoke to Tāwara o te Wai hosts Jon Reed and Emily Afoa about how the initiative – a joint approach between the Dunedin City Council and Otago Regional Council - is working through the complex issues of creating a new climate resilience community.

Indigenous values and knowledge are increasingly embedded in our relationship with water both in Aotearoa New Zealand and across the Tasman.

Ahead of Māori Language Week and the 10th IWA-ASPIRE and Water New Zealand Conference & Expo 2025 at Ōtautahi Christchurch, our hosts Jon Reed and Hannah Edmond are joined by Principal Aboriginal Cultural Advisor at Beca Hunter H20, Phil Duncan.  Phil’s a member of Australia’s Gomeroi Nation.  Also joining the discussion is Emily Afoa, Pou Whakarae at Tektus and Kairangahau at Pūrangakura, the Māori independent research centre.

Listen to this episode of Tāwara o te Wai, as Emily and Phil discuss how the growing alignment of indigenous knowledge and western science, along with collaboration and connection, is helping reframe our relationship with water and the wider environment.

Councils have been under pressure to meet the September deadline for Water Services Delivery Plans and as part of that, finalise decisions about their future organisations – whether to form new Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) either on their own or across regional boundaries, or go it alone and continue to provide services in house.

But whatever the decision, there won’t be a business as usual option.

New requirements around financial ring fencing, transparency, regulation and service delivery mean that they will be under scrutiny to meet new rules and standards.

In this latest podcast, hosts Jon Reed and Emily Afoa discuss the impact of the Local Water Done Well reforms with Water New Zealand chief executive Gillian Blythe and Nick Davis, an economist and partner with the advisory firm MartinJenkins.

Engineers working in flood management are well-versed in the technical aspects of flooding.  But what happens when you talk to distressed people who have just lived through deeply traumatic experiences?

In this episode of Tāwara o te Wai, flood assessor Tom Nikkel and Auckland Council flood risk manager Fiona Macdonald,  working in the aftermath of the 2023 Auckland anniversary, reflect on the tension between the need to make robust technical decisions and supporting the many traumatised people whose homes and lives have been upended.

As our plastic addiction continues to impact all corners of the globe, microplastics – tiny particles of plastic – that escape wastewater treatment plants have been found along our coastlines, throughout our water environment and in biosolids spread on land in Aotearoa New Zealand. Yet little is known about the long term impact on our environment - oceans, crops, soil and air and consequent health outcomes.

In this Tawara o te Wai podcast, host Jon Reed is joined by three experts to discuss the impact and risk of microplastic contamination, particularly in biosolids, and some of the efforts underway to try to eliminate this particularly difficult and long-term plague.

Joining Jon as co-host in this discussion is David Romilly, an associate engineer at Aurecon and chair of the Water New Zealand biosolids subgroup of the wastewater special interest group.

Their guests are environmental scientist Helena Ruffell, who’s been investigating the impact of microplastics in productive soil and Australian-based chemical engineer Deric Dignon who’s been involved in the development of Australia’s first carbonisation facility for biosolids.

The water sector is facing global challenges – from climatechange to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity and resilience.

Finding solutions to these problems is bigger than one organisation or even one country.  That’s why it’sbecoming increasingly important to share ideas and collaborate across the world.

But the big challenge is how to do this on a practicallevel, and how to ensure that multi-discipline, multi-organisational groups don’t simply become talk-fests that achieve little in real outcomes.  

In our latest Tāwara o te Wai podcast, presenters Jon Reedand Hannah Edmond talk to Edinburgh-based process engineer Amanda Lake, who’s a global principal for Jacobs where she leads work on water sector decarbonisation and the circular economy.

Also joining the conversation is Chris Thurston, former headof sustainability for Watercare and currently working as a consultant.

Don’t be your organisation’s weakest link when it comes to

In our latest Water New Zealand Tawara o te Wai podcast, Jon Reed and Hannah Edmond were joined by Jennie and the director of Mission Enablement at the National Cybersecurity Centre, Mike Jagusch.

As the pressure is on organisations to become efficient and

Yet despite the rapidly changing risks, most cases of cyber attack can be thwarted.  But it relies on staff at all levels of an organisation understanding their role and how to play their part in staying cybersafe.

Listen to our latest podcast and find more resources on how to stay cybersafe on our website - waternz.org.nz.