National and ACT are currently soaring in the opinion polls on a wave of post covid anger and ‘Māori privilege’ angst, both have promised to scrap 3 Waters if they win a majority in the next election, so what would actually happen if National/ACT see their dog whistle through?
Māoridom were forced into seeking Waitangi Tribunal resolution in 2012 over the issue of Māori water rights because John Key sold 49% of the Hydro water assets alongside taxpayer funded sweeteners. The moment National put a value to water, Māori interests were immediately triggered, and the Waitangi Tribunal ruled that Māori did have water interests and it was up to the State to lay those interests out and protect them.
Labour’s 3 Waters proposal is their attempt at laying those Māori water interests out and protecting them by using the very co-governance model that ACT and National were the original architects of.
To now have ACT and National play the race baiting card over a model they themselves built to solve a privatization of hydro assets they sold is just an audacity beyond words.
So what actually happens if National and ACT scrap 3 Waters? I would imagine Māoridom would immediately go back to the Waitangi Tribunal lodging complaints that the State have once again betrayed their Treaty obligations over water, the Tribunal would be highly likely to rule in Māoridom’s favour and Christopher Luxon will be forced into the Helen Clark position of overruling the Court by passing legislation to seize water off Māori the way Helen did with the Foreshore and Seabed.
That would ignite a terrible and righteous anger within Māoridom.
National and ACT should be very careful in what they wish for.
First published on Waatea News.
More importantly what happens to the failing infrastructure if 3 waters is dropped? Who then funds the repairs? Will Act and National have an alternative policy? We know they fix nothing so most likely they will leave it to the Local Authorities, funded through rates to the tune of 180 billion. So nothing will get fixed.
Why worry about who co-governs the oxidation ponds.
Please step up engineers, project planners, financial planners- and other useful people.
I’m a retired engineer consultant who has worked on several waste water projects in NZ. My thoughts:
Firstly, there’s no real need for all 3 waters. If I recall the numbers correctly, 97% of drinking water consumed in NZ is already on spec and it’s a fairly trivial task to sort out the remaining 3%. So we can delete drinking water from the scope.
Next is storm water. This is so intimately tied up with all development projects: roads, houses, landscaping etc that it’s virtually impossible to separate it from the projects themselves. By its very nature it really doesn’t suit restructuring. So delete that ‘water’ from the scope too.
The real issue is sewerage and sewage treatment. It’s a specialised area that requires external resources in the case of small councils. It’s been poorly managed and underfunded for decades. Many councils would sooner spend rates on wind wands and ‘bucket fountains’ instead of focusing on core services. Auckland Council has been no different but in recent years it has at long last got its act together and is investing the necessary billions to sort it all out: Auckland should thus also be excluded from the scope.
I think a more pragmatic solution would be to provide an auditing and technical support service to local government with the power to redirect expenditure if that council is profligate. Finance is outside my realm but Capital could be raised by a government bond issuance but the interest on that should be sheeted back to the councils spending the money: no way should we let them off the hook. If it turns out that some local government bodies are simply incompetent through lack of scale maybe amalgamation or central government stewardship is the way to go.
That’s the problem in general isn’t it. Voices like Chris Finlayson’s are now gone from the National party so they now pretend co governance is some sort of well thought out evil labour master plan, despite everyone pointing out Labour have no plan because they never thought they would win.
I love the rabid weakness of Martyn’s argument.
‘Let’s continue an undemocratic, elitist, unnecessary, poisoned chalice of a policy because if it was repealed then the undemocratic, elitist identikits pushing it through would be very unhappy and their friends in a undemocratic, ideologically-soaked institution would agree’.
And in jeebus’s holy name, maybe we should pursue a whole re-examination of the underpinning of the Waitangi Tribunal if it operates now simply to automatically approve of whatsoever grievance is raised by Maori. That’s not a tribunal, that’s a rubber stamp; a kangaroo court of ethno-tribalism.
Here is the reality: Maoridom is now on a rabid pursual of a policy of revanchism mixed with a giant dose of faulty critical social justice dross. It is not remotely connected with real justice.
I say this as someone who would strongly defend Treaty claims and the Waitangi Tribunal to my family for many years. Not anymore; it is a never-satisfied cauldron of undemocratic, revisionist racialism.
Except the public land and water assets are part of the taonga of the indigenous people. The iwi compensation for loss of land into private ownership is one thing and their involvement as partners in management of the public assets reflects our bi-cultural identity and is in accord with our UN commitments. And it was a National government that accepted we had those commitments.
Agree especially those with more woke urban councils. Always into nice to haves and not into substance. Yes Wellington we are looking at you.
There is some right wing constitutional law guy doing the rounds here (very well regarded Andrew someone?) and to quote his review of He Pua Pua. The UN declaration on Indigenous rights does not carry any particular legal weight. Far less than a Treaty and less than most National Laws. We can simply say no we are not going to enact this at this stage with no substantive repercussions.
So if we wanted to, we could walk back He Pua Pua at anytime regardless of whoever signed up to it. Tribalists are giving it a weight it doesnt have and He PuaPua in all likelihood is in opposition to the true Maori version of the ToW (According to venerable Maori scholars).
This isnt to say that Maori issues dont need to be dealt with urgently but He Pua Pua is not the way.
100% agree. But also Martyn seem to have missed Anne Salmons 5? part writing on the Treaty which underlines that the west brought a new paradigm to Maori which was culturally opposed to the native one Then along comes various interpretations like Palmers and even He PuaPua that attempt to solve a Maori issue using a western paradigm which leads even further away from what was intended.
Salmon convincingly argues that New Zealanders are all the same and that in Maoridom the Treaty was a chiefly gift. That it was about how we are an interwoven cloak of our relationships and all our heritage and our relationship to the natural world. That current approaches to co governance whilst well meaning are actually adding to division. That we need to get back to being all the people of New Zealand with equal rights but a focus on our interconnectedness and community. No more Iwi vs Kiwi, just people who care for each other and want things to improve for those most in need.
Which I must admit was a place I thought we were finally getting close to before Ardern started all this divisive crap.
Nice!
There are two separate issues that 3 Waters tries to address.
Firstly is infrastructure and that one is easily solved trough the creation of an state funded infrastructure bank. Any piece of infrastructure (roads, water reticulation, rail line, power station, electricity grid upgrade, etc.) that needs money simply goes to the infrastructure bank for funding. The state is in the all powerful position to access funding as a collective at the cheapest rates on the world wide bond market. Heck if you really want, China will build it for “free” (strings attached).
Secondly is the governance of 3 Waters. And yes Maori will continue to be aggrieved when National kicks the proposal to touch. And yes that “would ignite a terrible and righteous anger within Māoridom”.
For 86% of the population that is situation normal. And for the 14% Maori it only adds to the anger.
It will open up deeper questions in what the resolution can be, for co governance simply will not work in a one person one vote democracy. And yes it is the tyranny of the majority over the tyranny of the minority.
How than to appease Maori? There is no answer to appeasement. Maori will be forever in a state of anger. Nothing can appease the anger.
So we will continue the status quo. Until such time all people born in New Zealand are considered “born of this land” with equal attachment to said land. And the only indigenous people recognized are Ngapuhi who were the first to land in New Zealand under Kupe leadership.
The people recognised as indigenous in New Zealand by the local government and the UN are called Maori.
So Maori should be given supreme power over pipes, dams and reservoirs that they didn’t build and in 1840 couldn’t have conceived of?
The majority of kiwis and councils have decided they don’t want three waters in its current setup and are overwhelmingly against co-governance. Labour is prepared to lose the election over this issue and if they do Nact will repeal it anyway.
Why is Labour choosing to die on this hill? Is the Maori caucus truly running things or are Labour members just not aware of the strong opposition moving against this?
We could have quality infrastructure in our regions if councils got back to looking after core infrastructure before anything else.
Why does any one think local, democratic, community ownership of water assets thats been working well for a hundred years is a bad idea and needs change? Only reason is the money in it for change buraucrats and gravy trainers.
Haha, but it hasn’t been working that’s the whole point.
The three waters plan is not about ownership of water or the treaty, it’s the urban drinking, waste and storm water infrastructure. Conflating the issue only serves to muddy the waters (so to speak) and provide cover for the worst kind of ethnic supremacist bullshit.
Put the plan in the bin and burn it; there is absolutely no valid reason for disproportionate Maori control of urban water.
Gerrit you need to learn the proper history and stop making up bullshit to justify your bullshit shallow argument there were people already here before Kupe and before the fleet of waka came. I am a descendant of Kupe (Ngati Hei) but my grandmothers people from the east coast were her before Kupe and so were many others. And there in lies the problem when people like you make up stuff. As for the other tosser on this site talking about water do you homework not all Maori are angry all the time, pissed of maybe cause we have to read such utter bullshit all the time.
Absolutely 100% Covid is Pa, particularly the last sentence.
Touched a nerve?. Perhaps you could write a definitive and concise history lesson that follows the true time line of New Zealand settlement.
I can only go by the official New Zealand history; for example
https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/10732
“Kupe is an important ancestor to the Maori people, and in many but not all iwi narratives he is accredited with being the first Polynesian to discover the islands of Aotearoa New Zealand. There are numerous stories, songs and places associated with Kupe, and though they vary by iwi, all are significant to those who hold them.”
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“The arrival of Kupe to Aotearoa is an important event for Maori, and he represents the whakapapa or a genealogical anchor and an ongoing relationship to the whenua or land. Kupe therefore is a prominent ancestor in the whakapapa or genealogies of many iwi and great effort is made to cite an association with him. This is reinforced by the many numerous places named for Kupe, his family and their travels throughout the lands of Aotearoa.”
So as Tauiwi we can only go by official records and writings. We don’t make stuff up about things we don’t know, but we do read and comprehend “facts” as officially presented.
Noe there are many many publications that name Kupe as the first New Zealand settler. Please discuss with those authors your interpretation of the “facts” and publish the rebuttal for us Tauiwi to learn from.
I wait the true facts with bated breath.
Bro, kupe first arrived in Aotearoa and in particular Te Whitianga a Kupe about 900AD. He arrived on the backs of whale and birds – ie he followed the migration paths of the whales and birds in the spring. They had noted that the migrating birds must be migrating to a land mass – as they weren’t sea birds but waders. Toi Te Huatahi arrived in Aotearoa and settled at Hui Te Rangiora in Whitianga. The Te Arawa and Tainui waka arrived in Aotearoa about 1200 AD at Whangaparaoa (Bay of whales) near East Cape. Thats the simple explaination.
Some local council’s have gorged themselves on Rate payer $ and produced substandard results. Which leaves them open to a take over by central government.
Agree especially those with more woke urban councils. Always into nice to haves and not into substance. Yes Wellington we are looking at you.
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