Greg Wallace: Master Plumbers Chief Executive on Wellington Water crisis

Four months ago, Wellington Water said plumbers weren’t qualified to repair the capital’s water crisis. 

However, it's now been revealed that they're more qualified than Wellington Water's own workforce. 

Master Plumbers Chief Executive Greg Wallace told Heather du Plessis-Allan “The Workplace Development Council have agreed the NZQA standards that plumbers do, are more than what Wellington Water requires.” 

Wallace said “In February, [Wellington Water] told us they had a workforce crisis, and they couldn’t fix the 3,572 leaks at the time.” 

He said they make things as difficult as possible.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The pressure is growing on Wellington Water to let trained
plumbers help them fix the city's water problems. Previously, Wellington
Water said plumbers were underqualified to fix these kinds of leaks.
They claim that to work on the public water network
you need specialist knowledge and specialist qualifications. But now the
plumbing industry body has confirmed actually plumbers are more qualified
than the usual Wellington Water contractors. Greg Wallace is the

(00:22):
Master Plumbers Chief Executive and with us now.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey Greg, afternoon, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Are any private plumbers helping Wellington Water at this stage?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yes, they are. They've been approved contractors for many a
year and they didn't have to do an extra qualification.
They got their plumbing qualification recognized.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
How did they get their qualification recognized? And others can't.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
It's a really good question, and they have Wellington Water
or the councilor who own well with the water haven't
been able to answer that question.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
How many of them are there?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Very few because they have a long protracted health and
safety and other compliance document you have to go through.
My members have told me it's twenty four pages of tickboxing.
But when they've got to the qualifications, they've proved that
there were certified licensed plumber under the PG board, and
they've said that is fine and acceptable. Now, I suppose
my other point is our Workplace Development Council, who's the

(01:20):
independent body, have agreed that the unit standards in the
Q eight unit standards that plumbers do more than what
the infrastructure and water qualification is that well into water
is required.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
So basically your argument from the sounds of things is
just get rid of all the paperwork and just say yes,
you guys can do it. Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Okay? We work at water all the time, drinking water
every single day, we come to your house with fix
your taps were fixture water mains exactly saying we're talking.
We're going to remember in February when I first had
the well meeting was well into Water and got some
interest from councils. They told us we had they had
a workforce crisis and they couldn't fix the three thousand,

(02:03):
five hundred and seventy two leaks at the time because
of the workforce. We said, understand that the plumbers are
also rate players and we want this resolved. So we're helped.
We're willing and able to help, particularly when the Toby's
are in private property, and since that we've had red
tape and compliance and nonsense put to us to try

(02:24):
and say that the plumbing set there aren't qualified and
that's just simply not true.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
What's the real reason that Wellington Water's been so weird
about it.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
They have a contract, they have a contract with third
party supplies. I think there's some probably some conflict in
that contractor whether they want other private contract involved in
fixing it. They make things as difficult as possible when
we think, you know, we're talking about Toby's and private property,
it's just just an isolation valve. It's not complex at all,

(02:56):
and plumbers are licensed under raging and it's been proved.
The other point is only forty one percent of their
own workforce cause the qualification, and of subcontractors that they employ,
they don't keep any records and so this has been
another hurdle to try and delay. What we should have
been doing is just concentrating on fixing the lead.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Truth so Greg is the truth that they actually don't
have enough money to be able to employ plumbers. Because
what's happened is Wellington City Council, being the type onds
that they are, have only given Wellington Water this much money, right,
and that basically is enough to keep all of their
contractors busy. So if they then got you guys, and
they would actually just run out of money really quickly
and everybody have to stop it.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Ye, and Wellington City Council's plumbered around the funding the game.
But Campbell Barry from Hut City Council has been very
adamant that extra funding was given from Hut City Council
on the basis that plumbers would be important, good, interesting,
and that happened and so yeah, look, I think they've
leveraged the plumbing community to try and extract funds and

(04:01):
they never had any intention of using plummers. They just
use out of political football to try and increase the
funding they get. It's still not affordable. What you know,
the efforts repair from run in to water is five
thousand and five leak. It's quite ludicrous. And I keep
saying our plumbers are paying rates from commercial property and
at their home and all they see is just delays

(04:24):
and length and it's just and no one's taking ownership.
And we've got to remember the council's own run into water.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, do you know what, Greg, You're The frustration in
your voice pretty much sums up how most Wellingtonians feel.
I think, thank you so much for your time, mate,
and best of like trying to beat your head against
this brick wall. Greg Wallace, Master Plumber's Chief Executive. For
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