Mark Mitchell

So you've got the water company, they've got a nice new Maori name, and they're going to start sending out specific water bills to everyone, which upon first blush, if you've never got a water bill before, seems a lot, the average being about $2,500 a year.

But then...

The upsize is good to know.

I would have thought what things actually cost as opposed to having it, you know, all hidden away in a mass bill called rates where no one's got any idea what's going on.

The real scrap, though, is over the pay packets.

They in this new company are a lot bigger.

Now, the chair of the board gets one hundred and ten thousand dollars.

They used to get 60.

The members of the board get 60.

They used to get 30.

The bloke who carries the can is the CEO.

He gets six hundred and forty five thousand dollars a year.

now toss a few figures like that about the place and suddenly you've got a lot of angst a lot of upset but here is your real world issue you either want decent people for the job any job or you don't now i don't need to tell you that previously a lot of people doing wellington's water work were clearly useless in a small and not complete way money fixes that it is not to say big money automatically gets brilliance but it is fair to say if you pay rubbish you will get rubbish

The old community contribution, the give something back line only carries you so far.

You tend to get do-gooders, not professionals.

And can I be even slightly more fiscally acerbic by suggesting even at these new inflated numbers, you're not exactly paying top dollar.

I mean, $645,000 is a lot of money if you're in year 13 or you're a teacher or you're a journalist.

But it's not too much to be a CEO and even less...

when you're the CEO of an entity that's under tremendous pressure and publicly accountable by a population that will want to lynch you if you fail.

See, the public services, as a rule, underpays.