Press Release – New Zealand National Party Councils should be worried by Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta refusing to guarantee they won’t be forced into the new water entities, National’s Local Government spokesperson Christopher Luxon says. “Despite saying from the start that the Three Waters reforms would be voluntary for councils, the Minister has repeatedly refused to rule out making them compulsory with councils forced to surrender local control of their assets. “With Whangārei District Council pulling out of the reforms before they’d even got off the ground, Minister Mahuta is now clearly feeling the heat. “This week she gave a vague threat in Parliament that councils should ‘think again’ about opting out, on the very same day her department revealed it had spent $3.5 million on an ad campaign maligning councils for their water management.