The way the right have framed 3 Waters as an attack on democracy is a masterclass of propaganda that would make your average Qanon Fear grifter blush.
The reason we have a vast under investment in water infrastructure is because Local Government won’t upgrade a system put under immense stress by Central Government’s open door immigration policy and low wage economy addiction.
Suburban home owners are fine with this mass immigration policy and infrastructure gridlock because it pushes up the untaxed house valuations they have gotten used to gaining year in and year out.
Neither Central Government nor Local Government want to have an honest discussion with voters about higher water rates and higher taxes.
Someone has to come up with the $150billion over the next 30 years to keep up with the expected population growth from the mass immigration policies of both Labour and National.
20% of our water is lost between the tap and its source!
Christ we can’t even debate taxing the fucking banks windfall taxes without the Right clutching their pearls and fainting on behalf of the free market.
The way this refusal to debate the cost of mass immigration policies and the political power of middle class property speculators has been twisted into a racist debate about co-governance and Māori ethno nationalism is gasp inducing in its dog whistling audacity.
3 Waters isn’t about Māori taking over the fucking water, it’s about Local and Central Government refusing to pay for the mass immigration policies that are enriching the property speculating middle classes.
Yes there are issues about possible water privatisation, yes there are issues about how we arrive at Māori voice in these decisions, but ultimately this is all about no one wanting to pay for the mass immigration that is enriching property owners.
I don’t see the Co-Governance issue as the great bogeyman that the Right do. I see it as a simple extension of the Waitangi Tribunal ruling into water rights that was sparked by Key selling 49% of our Hydro assets.
That ruling said Māori water rights existed and that it was up to the Crown and Māori to negotiate that.
How Māori having a say on basic water management (using co-governance models that ACT and National created) has managed to become the target of 3 Waters is further evidence of why we desperately need the RNZ/TVNZ Merger so that these issues can be unpacked and explained on Seven Sharp rather than having Jeremy and Hillary pulling faces on the altar of lite weight infotainment that the 7pm Current Affairs timeslot has become on the Public Broadcaster in this brain dead shallow settler nation of ours.
I said you wouldn’t believe my Public Broadcaster twist at the end!
Our last hope for actual journalism that cuts through the self interested spin lines uncritically broadcast as truth is RNZs smug woke elitism vs TVNZs Fuck Boy Island Ratings crassness.
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It is not co governance. It is Maori control of the water.
Bomber, your failure to address this issue undermines your integrity. Just like Adern and Mahuta never ever discuss these details.
How Tom C? How are Māori going “control” water anymore than their co governers?
Where you burning yourself on the steps of parliament when they passed the Waikato River Settlement Act 12 f’ing years ago?
Bullshit Tom. You are just frightened of any suggestion of co governance because you don’t want to lose your privilege of power.
Co governance was introduced by John Key and Bill English and works perfectly well with the Waikato River, Lake Taupo, Whanganui etc.
Don’t be a fucking scared arse. Change is not always good but in this case absolutely necessary because you racist arses won’t spend money either on things that are absolutely necessary. Where they have they’ve fucked up big time.
Look at Whanganui, two waste treatment plants since 2005. The first failed in 2014 so $42m later (70% taxpayer funded) they have a state of the art system that cannot process waste from the tannery because of heavy metals. They have a legal obligation to accept the waste so the poisonous waste from the plant is being dumped in a big pit . Environmental disaster waiting to happen when the pit leaks. To top it off we pay $350 per year for every crapper we have in the house.
Don’t fucking tell me they have done a good job. They are like most councils only good for painting pedestrian crossings and raping parking meters. Absolutely not the fault of Maori, they don’t even have Maori wards. Ah but they’ve taken $20 plus million of central government funding in the last year to repair infrastructure bute they dy want government involved unless it suits their business and racist agendas.
Keep a LID on your language please, any body would be offended by your lack of decorum. Any way, what i am really trying to say is SHUT THE FUCK UP
Let’s put some common logic and sense in the argument shall we. Councils have not invested in water infrastructure because:
a). It’s not a vote winner (hey your rates increase is going to fix some leaky pipes)
b). The vast majority of local government staff and elected officials are incompetent left wing bunnies that would rather fund vanity projects.
c). The councils had 20+ years to invest in water and other infrastructure while this population increase occurred – they didn’t. That is on them.
Of course central government (all of them since Lange) are partially to blame. But to frame the local councils as innocents here and using this as a crutch to argue for central government involvement is to let the local councils and their officials off the hook. That should not happen.
We should be also asking why moving the assets off the councils’ hands is so important. HINT: You can borrow against these and if you put them in a SPV they don’t have to be on the government books.
As for co-governance – yes it is the big boogeyman. You implement co-governance you no longer have a democracy where one person, one vote is enshrined. It is that simple.
Most agree something needs to be done about the Nation’s water system. Labour have served us all badly by combining the changes with involving Maori and trying to say trust us we know best . This attitude is duplicated in health and social care as well .It is Labour governments to explain what they are doing which they have not done swell so far and have just left themselves open to the racist tag
100%
Trevor, ” Labour has served us badly”.
Yet the water systems are fucked now, we don’t know about the future yet. So by your own admission it is National and ACT that have ” served us badly”
A party as diverse as Labour, you describe as “open to the racist tag” is terribly thought out given your National party couldn’t get any whiter.
Thank you.
It’s framed that way because the instigators have allowed it to be framed that way. How could they not?
1) Boundaries according to 1840 tribal regions.
2) Te Mana o te Wai statements that enable Maori control at the operational level (not just governance).
It sure looks like it’s just as much about Maori rights as it is about water. At the very least it’s poor marketing.
3 Waters is a complex beast and whilst its true no-one wants to pay for it, I don’t think it is as simple as that.
The more layers that are peeled back on 3 Waters, the more you go, why on earth or uh, oh.
Pertinent issues to be addressed amongst others are:
1/ Māori involvement in 3 Waters – once you push the diehard racists out of the room there is still a genuine concern about the cost of all the extra bureaucracy (and there is a lot and its expensive) related to this and the structuring of the agencies along tribal lines not making sense commercially.
The other valid concern is Te Mana o te Wai statements which are described on Internal Affairs website as
“a concept that puts water as a spiritual entity — the value of water — above the needs of people and communities”.
Oddly enough Te mana o te Wai is the only bit of 3 Waters I like – the idea that we dont just bowl ahead without involving local iwi but OTOH, it means that any Hapu can shut down any water project for a myriad of reasons – including spiritual ones. And there are a lot of people out there that think that is an economic no go – and it does happen, remember the Meremere Taniwha that delayed the Waikato expressway by 6? months way back when.
2) Sensible councils are on top of their water situation and have invested heavily (Although I doubt any are perfect) but it really doesn’t feel fair to pay for appalling woke councils like Wellington who fiddled while the water infrastructure burnt.
3) The debt funding system adopted is one of I think 3 possibles and we have chosen the most risky one of all apparently and gone for the highest level of debt ratio? available.
4) The model is not necessarily the best for the job (long story behind that too but definitely some validity around process and cost)
5) 3 Waters will demolish economies of scale in district and smaller councils and they will be forced to amalgamate. So we will lose local representation on more than just water ultimately and critics rightly say that 3 Waters will be an unelected body with say over all our water assets which currently resides with democratically elected local representatives.
6) Taking management of water assets from councils is an issue. You cant just say councils own water assets but are not allowed any of the benefits/liberties? of using those assets. There are court cases proceeding testing that.
So to say 3 Waters is just about racism or just about not wanting to pay for it is a misrepresentation.
Finally, I think it has a lot to do with people feeling pushed and squeezed by the govt with no-one listening to what they want. We have had a lot of that lately. Lets face it, the ink wasnt dry on the Wayne Brown proposal before it was publically ruled out.
Govt flooded the market with cash during Covid, crashed the interest rates, and gave it all to jo public to invest in property. If they had only invested in crucial infrastructure, and given green light for those workers to work during lockdown, instead of sitting at home.
Excellent well informed Fantail.
I would add that surely the most straightforward way of finding water infrastructure is through the issue of Govt bonddd?
Three waters is another example of labour governing by stealth and I know longer trust them
Excellent summary Fantail
Fantail,WCC, aka the Coven of Poneke, weren’t fiddling, they had issues with prioritising, but at least the rainbow pedestrian crossing’s getting a repaint job costing enough to feed one hundred hungry families for two years.
LOL
This debate has dragged on for a couple of years now with no end in sight. If the government had simply set up a contestable fund we could have solved many of the critical water infrastructure issues already.
And that is the English version Robber from Wellington as my understanding is when a treaty is signed the indigenous version should take precedent as it is more likely to be the true one and what was originally agreed to. But the English version also declares Maori would have full undisturbed possession of their land, fisheries etc etc and this has never really occurred and when Maori have received anything (like a TOW settlement) it has been a pittance.
And that is the English version Robber from Wellington as my understanding is when a treaty is signed the indigenous version should take precedent as it is more likely to be the true one and what was originally agreed to. But the English version also declares Maori would have full undisturbed possession of their land, fisheries etc etc and this has never really occurred and when Maori have received anything (like a TOW settlement) it has been a pittance.
@CiP agree that te reo Māori version of the Treaty should take precedence, I also I have more confidence in water management with tikanga rather than for example neoliberal principles.
However the lack of checks and balances around the binding Te Mana O Te Wai statements is a concern. It seems naive to assume that all governance at all times and in all places will be managed even for the benefit of all Māori, let alone all people rather than narrow special interests.
The Playcenter and 2 rōpū vetoing 4 other rōpū and the overwhelming majority of parents and staff is a case in point.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/10/02/playcentre-aotearoa-urgently-need-to-step-up-or-risk-igniting-co-governance-backlash/
The demolition of roughly 50 Te Urewera huts may also be illustrative. It is proceeding without consultation (including of Tūhoe people) under the pretext of poor maintenance. Much is promised in replacements but no plans have been made public regarding timeline or scope.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/476295/te-urewera-backcountry-huts-will-be-gone-by-christmas-critic-says
Lastly as Denny references, the Bill allows entering into contracts with other water services entities which begs the question are Māori capitalists any different than Pākeha capitalists?
Is water racist?
Overly-Woke Support Group
https://vimeo.com/284986055
Martyn, I see you have relied heavily on Bernard Hickey’s (flawed) assessment of the reasons for 3W.
He claims that the whole point is to place “the council-owned assets into new balance sheets that are also separate from the Crown’s…”
They won’t be at all, of course. This is only the appearance of separation. The debt is still backed by the Crown and taxpayers are still on the hook. Without the implied govt guarantee, the Water Services Entities would have a rating barely above junk bond status.
Thomas Cranmer points all this out at:
https://cranmer.substack.com/p/wayne-brown-lays-down-the-challenge?
The government’s three waters proposal is a cloak for imposing far-reaching constitutional changes under “co-governance” and the end of equal rights for all New Zealanders. It involves the confiscation of community-owned assets and placing them under iwi control. Do you understand the function of Te Mana O Te Wai statements as binding directives to water services providers that can only be issued by Maori? The Auditor-General has also ripped into the lack of accountability either to communities or to Parliament in the proposal. Yet this house of cards could in theory rack up $150 billon in debt.
If Maori have a customary right or interest in certain bodies of water they can litigate in the courts or negotiate with government. But this hare-brained scheme needs to be booted out of the park.
The leadership of Groundswell admitted to not having read it when they held their first mobilization. Interview to TV camera.
The issue is that government has mixed in this co-governance concept into a restructure of the water systems.
Two separate things entirely.
They didn’t explain co-governance; what it means, the merits or otherwise. This should be discussed and debated as a completely separate issue to the water systems.
Not stirred in under the cover of darkness. And one daren’t say anything else face the risk of being labelled racist.
Where does the revelation that a TVNZ/RNZ merger means (election year) current affairs at 7pm come from?
Conclusion,treaty debate,my whanau,you are not one of us who you,ask my tamariki,wai,and waitai,is our place to enjoy, without ignorance exploit,we farm so waid in our rivers no need to swim just waid,was one of a farmers best fail ministers shipley, that key said gave him insperation.
Sounds like it is preparing to be a long-running NZ tv series. First there was Twin Peaks and now Three Waters! It’s got all the ingredients, drama, pathos, the little guy (Councils and citizens) against the big guy with power Big Government, the sort of scenario enacted by the wealth-hungry USA movers and shakers. I think we should make like reef fish in this present world, dart out and organise a raid for what we need then retire to our burrows and get on with living..
such a galvanizing subject this 3 waters thing. I’m almost cynical enough to think this is an orchestrated play to bring out a political issue on the back of the universal human right of access to water. shelter food protection – you know those infallible things to us all.
They could have just put in a framework and sent down edicts and ultimatums. You know – a whole schematic plan as built and where to go from here – this is obviously not an engineering driven thing – is it?
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