Regulation of Wellington’s water services
The Commerce Commission is proposing ongoing targeted economic regulation to improve transparency, accountability, and outcomes for Wellington consumers.
Our role
Right now, we are responsible for the economic regulation of Wellington Water through an early form of light-touch regulation. This is called foundational information disclosure and requires key performance and operational information to be shared with the Commission and made public.
From 1 July 2026, Tiaki Wai will take over responsibility for delivering water services in the Wellington metropolitan area and our full economic regulatory regime applies to its water and wastewater services from this date.
Our focus is protecting the interests of consumers now, and in the long-term. We consider that there are matters that need to be addressed immediately by Tiaki Wai to enable it to restore confidence to Wellingtonians as quickly as possible.
Additional economic regulation for Tiaki Wai
We are consulting on proposed additional requirements for Tiaki Wai. Our priority is to establish a clear performance baseline. Good decisions depend on good information, and a clear performance baseline helps understand where performance is today and where it needs to improve.
We are considering additional information disclosures (ID) that build on and accelerate the sector-wide enduring ID regime introduced in 2026. These are intended to provide earlier transparency and further assurance in the areas of highest risk. These are asset planning, delivery capability, financial performance and network and consumer outcomes.
We are also consulting on whether we should recommend performance requirement regulation for Tiaki Wai, to provide clearer accountability and stronger incentives for timely improvement during this period.
Submissions are due by 5pm on 28 May 2026. Details on how to make a submission are in the consultation documents.
Foundational information disclosure for Wellington Water
In October 2025 Wellington Water began publishing information about aspects of its performance, as specified by us. We monitor that Wellington Water discloses the specified information and at the required time, analyse the information that is published, and share some of our insights. Our current view reinforces early concerns about data quality and other matters directly affecting planning, investment prioritisation and delivery. This has led to our consideration of further economic regulation for Tiaki Wai.