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# Moa Point and the Shitty Deflection
- URL: https://goodoil.news/moa-point-and-the-shitty-deflection/
- Published: 2026-10-25T21:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T21:29:59.000Z
- Description: “Greater Wellington” sues Wellington City Council and Tiaki Wai over Moa Point sewage disaster.
- Author: Reproduced with permission
- Tags: NZ Politics, Environment

[**John McLean**](https://mcleanj.substack.com/p/wellington-regional-councils-shitty)  
*Citizen typist patriot*

The Wellington Regional Council (WRC) calls itself “Greater Wellington Te Pane Matua Taiao”. However, there’s nothing remotely Great about WRC and it’s certainly no greater that the Wellington City Council (WCC) or Tiaki Wai Limited. They’re all as bad and idiotic as each other.

On 1 October, WRC filed criminal prosecutions in the Wellington District Court against both WCC and Tiaki Wai, over the failure of Wellington’s Moa Point wastewater treatment plant and the resultant continuing discharges of untreated sewage.

WCC and Tiaki Wai each face 10 charges under the Resource Management Act. Technically, WRC has laid the charges simply because it was WRC that issued the resource consents for the Moa Point plant. WCC holds the consents and Tiaki Wai is the plant operator, as successor to its predecessor company, Wellington Water Limited.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UgNp!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3764b8f5-8d29-42ec-a18c-e5c1ffa6e2fc_242x327.png)

Fathima Iftikar, WRC’s “Director of Strategy, Policy and Regulation”, intimated that WRC considers itself obliged to act as “independent regulator” on Moa Point, stating:

“No matter how important the service, or who owns or operates it, the obligation to comply with environmental law remains the same.”

But let us not get distracted by what the charges are or their merits. Because, rather than being a genuine attempt to punish those responsible for the debacle, the charges are purely designed to further muddy Wellington’s waters, avoid personal repercussions for the blameworthy individuals and give a false and misleading impression that real redress is being sought. Furthermore, if the litigation proceeds to a conclusion, it will of course waste multi millions more of ratepayers’ money, to no avail. The only winners will be the lawyers.

The charges WRC is pursuing are WRC’s pre-emptive attempt to avoid its own responsibility for the Moa Point Pootastrophe. Because, as issuer of the consents, it was WRC’s abrogated responsibility to monitor compliance with the WRC-issued resource consents, enforce compliance and take early enforcement actions for breaches. In all those respects, WRC has been in gross dereliction of duty.

WRC knew for years that Wellington’s wastewater infrastructure was at extreme risk of failing. Public reports had repeatedly highlighted ageing Wellington water infrastructure and resource consent non-compliance warranting WRC enforcement action. I covered the Moa Point debacle, shortly after the plant catastrophically failed.

[WASTE, WASTE EVERYWHERE…](https://mcleanj.substack.com/p/waste-waste-everywhere) [John McLean](https://substack.com/profile/150118186-john-mclean?ref=goodoil.news) 12 Feb

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/31/f4/31f4e20a-0315-499e-83ff-139e8eab53bf/content/images/2026/10/image-8.png)

Untreated human waste continues to gush from the failed Moa Point treatment plant into the sea off the South Coast of Wellington. Pat Dougherty, the chief executive of Wellington Water, initially blamed the catastrophic failure on “under‑investment over a long period”. Wellington Water has now claimed that it cannot comment on the disaster because there…

[Read full story](https://mcleanj.substack.com/p/waste-waste-everywhere)

WRC is both a regional local authority and part of the wider Wellington local-government pond. The incestuous relationships between individuals within WRC, WCC and Tiaki Wai’s predecessor, Wellington Water, is the main reason why WRC was woefully weak in dealing with WCC and Wellington’s water entities before the Moa Manure Meltdown.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!66gW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F64233f6e-0b54-43a0-ae09-7246225af0be_322x322.png)

WRC’s CEO is Nigel Corry. Nigel is institutionalized in Wellington local government and deserves to be further institutionalized. He started at WRC in 1998, bounced to WCC in 2004 and rebounded back to WRC in 2005, before rising to WRC CEO in 2021 where his current term as CEO is not due to end until April 2028\. Local government Blobocrats endure, just as Us Awful Unwashed are forced to endure them.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KWLK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2bdf5e1d-516d-4783-82a9-dae2d5a4dc85_327x421.png)

Wellington Water’s CEO when the Moa Point plant failed on 4 February 2026was Pat Dougherty, another local government lifer. Pat was CEO of the Kāpiti Coast District Council for a decade and CEO of the Nelson City Council for more years before infecting Wellington Water in 2023.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Qo4f!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1d8a4b5f-daaf-4e29-ac8e-05b69c3afa8c_397x245.png)

Tasmanian interloper Michael Brewster replaced Dougherty this year when Wellington Water’s rapacious taniwha Tiaki Wai emerged, becoming its inaugural CEO.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xRFB!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28c0f379-75ba-4510-8e5b-c218aa74ed12_302x326.png)

Nick Leggett has barely been out of local and central government roles since he was elected to the Porirua City Council in 1998 at the chubby age of 19\. He joined Wellington Water’s board in 2022 and was chair when Moa Point disintegrated, having earlier appointed Dougherty as CEO. In a rare move, he resigned after the Moa Pt shit storm, reportedly saying “someone had to be accountable”. Perhaps he just drew the short straw (someone had to pretend to care). Perhaps Leggett just fled, like a sissy, to avoid any heat. He remains the CEO of lobby group Infrastructure New Zealand.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ccUb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa1d06c59-ec07-484e-adc3-4263b84961f1_332x231.png)

Green Party MP Tamatha Paul, in her former communist incarnation as the Wellington City Councillor, voted against adequate wastewater funding, preferring to divert funds into the exorbitant cycle lanes she’s never used.

WCC Mayor at the time Moa Point shat itself, Labour Lifer Andrew Little, labelled Leggett a “right-winger” a decade ago. But, in truth, all these people are much of a muchness politically: permanent Leftist addicts of the public tit.

Absent from modern Western life are general calls for public atonement and punishment of individuals when things go horribly wrong. Gone are the old fashioned notions that timeserving public ‘servants’ should be forced to make public amends and take personal responsibility for the results of their abject incompetence. Reports of public inquiries these days, including the report that tried to whitewash the Big Brown Moa, inevitably blame ‘systemic failures’ and absolve all the culpable individuals of blame. It’s all ***just bad luck***.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!T-SM!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fec052ebb-9f45-45c9-a45c-12bfc009ec94_326x255.png)

Pillory nowadays means to attack or ridicule publicly. But *pillory* also has an older, more down-to-earth meaning – to “put someone in a pillory”: a pillory being a wooden framework with holes for the head and hands, in which select individuals can be exposed to public abuse and pelted with objects. (A pillory is often confused with stocks, which typically restrain only the ankles.)

What about Wellington’s concerned, patriotic citizens rounding up Nigel Corry, Pat Dougherty, Michael Brewster, Nick Leggett, Tamatha Paul and Andrew Little, physically pillory them in Wellington’s Civic Square and allow aggrieved Wellingtonians to pelt them with volleys of Moa Point’s finest, rotten fruit and suchlike? Just for a few hours. And then, with these culprits having atoned for their execrable sins, release them to get on with their lives and immediately end the Wellington Regional Council’s ridiculous criminal proceedings.

Of course I’m not in my wildest dreams actually advocating for extrajudicial punishment of those culpable for the Moa Point Mess. In the modern theatre of Culture Wars, it’s the Leftists who advocate, and resort to, physical violence.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Fp1Q!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd00e9ff9-7e54-4468-a99d-665c6c500142_836x671.png)

In 1703, Daniel Defoe (author of the first major English novel, ***Robinson Crusoe***) was sentenced by his government and compliant courts to be pilloried for a pamphlet he wrote. But instead of attacking Defoe as he stood pilloried, sympathetic Londoners cheered him, drank to his health, festooned him with flowers and purchased his written works. If and when a Labour-led government pillories me for my Substacks, I doubt Wellingtonians would be that sympathetic to Pilloried McLean.

One clear imperative coming from WRC’s legal action against WCC (and Tiaki Wai) is that Wellingtonians must get a unitary Wellington Council as soon as possible. One Wellington Council suing another (and the water infrastructure company they each partly own) is an abject absurdity.

This article was originally published on the [author’s Substack](https://mcleanj.substack.com/p/wellington-regional-councils-shitty).