Where the fuck has this James Shaw been?
He’s just appeared on Newshub (link as soon as it becomes available) defending the entrenchment of 3 Waters and having the courage to remind everyone why the Right can’t be trusted with water!
Finally a progressive politician with the balls to actually defend the entrenchment process!
Water sovereignty is the most important issue on a climate warming planet, we must protect and rebuild the infrastructure and reassert our sovereignty over it.
National and ACT can’t be trusted with the family silverware, they have a history of selling State assets, indeed it was Key selling 49% of our Hydro assets that sparked the entire Māori legal interest in water issue to begin with!
The wonks have gone into the 3 Waters legislation and identified that even the financing side of this could lead to water privatisation and lurched into trying to enforce a 60% entrenchment against privatisation as if that would save it, (it’s the co-governance feature everyone is ultimately having to rely on in that Māori would never ever ever ever ever ever ever privatise the water).
So this 60% retrenchment ‘solution’ was put forward as the great safeguard and I’m all for it because it’s pure symbolism right? We could pass a law saying that from now on it requires 80% while all MPs are hopping, and it wouldn’t mean jack shit to the very next 51% majority that can unpick that law and throw it out.
But sure, force the Nats and ACT to actively unpick it and throw it aside before they begin their privatisation! Safeguard water, don’t make it easy for the right to privatise it!
And don’t start me on all the promises National are now making that they would never privatise the water, ask Aucklanders how they feel getting played by the Boomer King as he starts his privatisation rummage sale!
ACTs first attempted amendment for 3 Waters was a Public-Private-Partnership plan for Christ’s sakes, let’s not pretend they don’t love privatising our shit!
Having James stand up and call it like it is might just be the best thing that has happened to the progressive left all year!
Thank you James Shaw – and I honestly didn’t think I’d say that this year!
Where the hell has this James Shaw been and can we please have him back for the election next year!
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
Should just not steal locally owned assets, and if fast tracking modernisation is needed then enter Crown-Local-Partnerships to fund upgrades.
No theft.
No privatisation by way of white guilt.
People around the country wanted councils to retain ownership.
Councils wanted to retain ownership – and are only losing because central trumps local.
PPPs funded fiber internet, a successful infrastructure fast tracking – central could fund councils the same way.
Central can leverage and shoulder debt councils can only dream of.
And water quality is a new seperate entity, quality has (apparently) already been solved so set that new agency on councils, and then the whole fake premise for 3/5th waters disappears.
I can’t imagine what new arguments James Shaw has, all I see is same old arguments.
If James Shaw, Eugenie Sage, and Nanaia Mahuta are for some policy, that would signal to most voters that it is a bad idea.
Don’t be too harsh BMW Jimmy was recovering from the taxing Copout 26 and hanging out with Billionaires and working out which one he wants to work for in a couple of years.
He is still trying real hard to grow those magic beans he brought in Copout 25 and is watering them every day.
If all these pollies want entrenchment in their pet laws – how about campaigning on them at the next general election rather than trying to slip them through!
Eugenie “just start shooting the tahr” Sage once again shitting on due process.
Shaw is an irrelevance.
It’s time NZ had a robust constitution.
One that only a 75 percent majority or Tainui can change eh.
Invisible Shaw and at a time of housing crisis where is Davidson. How do they get 11%. Is it just due to Chloe
Quite right.
It should be illegal to call for privatization of any public resource, punishable by severe prison time or worse.
I know, food has been privatized forever and I’ve yet to eat anything all my life
Speaking up for having entrenched in the 3 Waters Bill that water can’t be privatised. ************Greattttttt****** James Shaw!***********
Don’t go round the vegie patch smashing down the growth with your little sticks you
careless children. James has spoken up, and it requires a lot of elevating energy to rise from the torpor of the self-satisfied greenies and labourites who seem like the lost boys and girls out of the Peter Pan story. While James is up and talking let’s all clap our hands to recognise him and keep him alive like Tinkerbell.
I dub thee James the Good and now go forth with your sword and swipe some people, or perhaps we could go back to duelling as in the 18th century – we are already bloodthirsty so let’s draw some in a straightforward manner with measured moves – start with the epee in fencing and go on from there. You in the Greens already have a unicorn for a trusty steed.
Don’t be put off by any Don Quixote comparisons, the writer had to endure considerable periods under duress away from his preferred place and business. He stuck to his goals and was not crushed.
Crack up GW! Tinkerbell Shaw… on his unicorn – magic! 🙂
Grazie Sinic. Its good to know that some things I write make sense. Please feel free to critique and better any idea I have and tell me why. We could have a Bert and Ernie like the two sparring away here without much backchat. But building, adding to ideas, tweaking our own to get them towards matchpoint; might be something we could all do in the run up to the election. Interesting to read Chris Trotter’s opinions in ‘Jacinda’s Manic Ministry’ – I think there has been a letter change from ‘magic’.
GW, lighten up eh, I was appreciating your humour. No worries, I’d love to have time to offer more discourse on more topics than I already do. However, some of us have to work to pay for everyone’s pensions, so it is what it is.
Okay – I think that if on this blog we keep up the discussions with backgrounds to inform well on what is being discussed. As time allows – even putting a useful link/ Writing even short comments can take 10-15 minutes if straying beyond the barest info so short ones could be effective enough rather than knowing nothing.
There’s much bullshit going down and the Left is certainly crucifying its own to their own detriment.
You don’t have to be a prophet to know in a few years from now that ‘forums’ and the public will be fiercely shouting ‘ give us our water back.’ AND that Eugene Sage was correct in seeking to protect NZ water from any forms of privatisation.
Where the fuck have complacent, behind the times New Zealanders been for 20 plus years ? Across the world, privatisation – liberalization of water services as a sellable market commodity has been mainstream since the 80’s.
That this doesn’t or won’t happen in NZ is the naivety of pretenders.
Across the globe fighting for ” water democracy” is one of the biggest issues on the table threatening populations and this includes developed countries.
The current battles internationally are about reclaiming water back into government/ public ownership from disastrous privatisation outcomes that took place over decades.
As an example – communities still without piped water as profits driven agenda ruled
; communities also who had their water sources captured and diverted so their livelihoods were left decimated.
In 2010 the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) recognized the human right to water and sanitation – the Human Right to water for all. The privatization or liberalization of water services are incompatible with this UN human right.
Across many countries the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) and its “Right2Water” group have battled since 2011 to keep water services in public hands and prevent water and services being handed over to profit driven corporations. The ECI have tens of millions pushing to implement the human right to water and sanitation into European law. A Eugene Sage moment if you like long before NZers woke up in 2022 !!!!
Outcomes of different countries privitisation efforts including the UK showed no clear-cut evidence of efficiency gains and often failed to raise finance on anything like the scales projected by the Right wing salesmen. Equality for access for water and services never happened for all people in these decades.
Liberalization efforts for decades perpetuated structures of inequality.
If you think implementing ‘3 Waters ‘ is costly, fighting the Cooperates to get water back is years and billions spent on legal battles.
The ECAN Natz water debacle ousting democratically elected counsellors is only a bun fight in comparison to the likes of the London – Barclay Bank backed “Santolina Project.” This battle is nearing 10 years of dispute where this private 95000 house development strips water from small , long standing communities whose lives depended on this scarce water. Think Peter Thiele’s request for piped water on a grand scale. In 2022, Santolina is back again wanting to strip even more resources from the poor guys.
These hysteria responses to ‘ 3 Waters ‘ have played right into Nats/Act hands ( they’re smugly laughing) and it’s great fodder for the media where the Left are in disarray sabotaging their own members. You’ve fallen for taking your eyes off the ball by attacking reputations or calling for sackings.
Sideshows framing water rights as a race issue is ignorance nor should it be driven solely by balancing the $books. Having water protected is life or death not a Kiwirail , JK’s forgetful – I did not have sex/shares with those trains – sell off.
Get the narrative and the focus back on track , you’re slitting your own throats.
If the ratepayers water assets remained in local authority control then they couldn’t be privatised.
Doh.
Privatising water has been a disaster in England.
The English water industry acts as an ATM for global investors.
English rivers and beaches are paying the price.
Don’t be dumb enough to follow th UK example.
Did James Shaw say something? What did he say? What did I miss? Everyone’s talking about it so it must have been something big? Oh, wow, I just heard that he swapped is sleek corporate Armani suit for an old wetsuit and barreled down the Huka Falls – in protest of Labour caving in on the entrenchment clause, like a proper Green Party leader. Good on him!
” Water sovereignty is the most important issue on a climate warming planet, we must protect and rebuild the infrastructure and reassert our sovereignty over it.”
I agree with you there Martyn!
Which is why the vast majority of New Zealanders don’t want it to be removed from the control of democratically elected local government and put into the hands of an unelected tribal elite.
Vast majority, in your wet dreams maybe.
The level of trust in this government is so low now that, personally, I don’t even believe this entrenchment thing was about privatising x waters at all.
Probably the intention was to stop National/Act repealing the entire thing.
In the words of George Carlin – I don’t believe a single thing my government tells me.
The Greens objected to the Bill because of their concerns about a potential privatisation under a future government. Of note however, Eugenie Sage rightly raised the risks that the proposed financing might create:
” This bill is all about improving three-waters infrastructure: stormwater, waste water, and drinking water. But there seems to be a view that if you separate out balance sheets and that if you establish the entities, rates won’t rise and there’ll be an ability for the entities to borrow more and meet that huge infrastructure deficit of over $100 billion.
But I think care is needed here. We have seen small councils refuse to invest. We’ve seen a lot of deferred investment. We’ve seen rates money going into civic buildings instead of into pipes under the ground. We’ve seen councils like Kaipara get itself into financial strife because it has relied on expert consultants and they haven’t provided affordable solutions.
These bigger entities will certainly have the technical capacity to manage water services, but there’s no magic money tree to provide for that infrastructure deficit. The credit rating agencies will be looking very carefully at how much the Government will impliedly support the entities when they go out to borrow, and we’ve seen overseas big private equity firms investing in companies in the UK which have been privatised creating debt mountains because of the large degree of profit that goes back to their shareholders.”
FINALLY! the debt mountain got an airing in Parliament. Good on the Green Party.
And those fuckwits in the Labour Party all voted baaaaaaaa! baaaaa!
Bring on the election.
So, tell me, if a party campaigns on privatising the Three Waters “entities” – after years of gross mismanagement and soaring water bills for consumers – and that party gets 55 percent of the seats in Parliament – whose will should prevail? The Parliament composed of MPs who opposed privatisation – to the point of entrenching it. Or, the most recently elected Parliament, a simple majority of whose MPs favour privatisation.
If your answer is the Parliament and the MPs of the past – not the Parliament and MPs of the present – then you need to sit down and have a long think about your commitment to democracy and its most fundamental principles.
3 waters has ALWAYS been a blueprint for privatisation.
It is our last great asset and the neo libs don’t know how to grow an economy only how to slash ,grab,sell , burn and take take take.
It needs to be repealed and National need to be slowly spit roasted until they do that!
‘A simple majority of privatisation MPs’ equals democracy?
How simple do you think we are?
NACTs have already promised to repeal 3 waters.
N will follow ACT to privatise.
So humanity has to take the next election as the decider.
Which class do you you think owns the means of communication?
Well Chris…what exact democratic principles do we have? By virtue of a selfish shady deal, a party with 36% of the votes gets to rule over the rest? In 2017…the vast majority of the population did not want Labour, yet they became the government. I know I know I know..in 2020 they got 50% and fair enough, but it started with a shady deal nack then and it be another shady deal next year. Is MMP in it’s current form real democracy? Is this the best form of democracy?
You know fuck all Sour Kraut, changing your name doesn’t hide your lack of knowledge.
Are you acting as devil’s advocate here Chris. We are but children at this political thing compared to the years you have put in. Are you saying that we have to rethink the form of democracy we have – like that old saying about the parson’s egg, in reply to a question if it was okay “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad Egg, Mr Jones!”; The Curate: “Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!”.
“In the words of George Carlin – I don’t believe a single thing my government tells me.”
I said the same thing when the previous government sold off our power co’s when a referendum voted otherwise.
but but but bert Labour can do no wrong according to you!
But but but Shona, it’s all about balance!
But but but Shona’s not about balance, read her posts.
An argument for entrenching three waters might make some sense if we knew the legislation was thought through and written well by a government that had a history of writing good law. This government fails on all three accounts. So why would anyone want to entrench this legislation before we new it was good workable law. Even those who want three waters would think that through wouldn’t they.
Pike River,not a political forget,a social care of not forget.
Comments are closed.