Finally, the truth about why the 3 Waters legislation has become so toxic has been revealed…
Three Waters: Officials warn water bills could increase āsignificantlyā without regulation
The statement hints at a looming conflict between big business and Government.
The legislation will automatically cancel the pricing and charging provisions of contracts currently in place between councils and businesses for commercial use within five years of the new water entities coming into force.
Officials believe these large commercial users have been given cheap access to water at the expense of households. As the water entities look at ways of sending households separate water bills, the Government wants household water users to be insulated from price hikes, at the expense of commercial water users.
Overall, the legislation paves the way for ācost-based pricingā so that the fees households and businesses pay for water services reflects the cost of delivering those services.
āIt is particularly important that businesses which use larger quantities of water face cost-based pricing, to incentivise businesses to use water efficiently.
āWe are concerned some territorial authorities may have offered large commercial water users āsweetheart dealsā with low water prices as a hidden subsidy to locate in their district,ā officials warn.
…that’s right, Commercial players who have abused low water charging for decades will finally be forced to pay their true cost and that is what is fuelling and funding the toxic malaise of 3 Waters.
The connection between corporate farmers, the feral Groundswell and right wing spin drs who have conspired to undermine 3 Waters are doing so because this has ultimately always been about cost and the way corporate farming escapes the true price of the water they take and pollute!
#nzpol pic.twitter.com/uK3TTahmwE
ā Martyn Bradbury (@CitizenBomber) October 13, 2022
Watching how this has been twisted into a race war by those who don’t want to pay for their pollution is as sad as the emotional manipulation driving the Ram Raiders debate thanks to crime porn clickbait from a ratings chasing Corporate Media.
You have been played over co-governance when the drivers of this movement were always corporate farming profit margin based masquerading as democratic concern.
When Elizabeth Rata coined the phrase āEthno-Nationalist Stateā to describe attempts to share power with MÄori as promised by the Treaty, every right winger wanting to be racist found glee in the shielding of their bigotry by the pretence of intellectualism.
What is most hilarious about Rataās claims of Ethno-Nationalist State is that she is 100% right, itās just that sheās right in a way she doesnāt want to admit to, which is NZ is an Ethno-Nationalist State, itās just a White Ethno-Nationalist State!
Our systems of power and control are all white, our dominant culture is white, our benefitting from colonialism is white, our purposeful laws aimed at taking more MÄori land were white, our confiscations are white, our dominant narrative is white.
So sure, NZ is an Ethno-Nationalist State, but for white people!
Any attempt to rebalance the damage caused by taking 90% of MÄori land in less than a century and any attempt to live up to the promise of the Treaty must be denigrated and appallingly decried as apartheid.
The two pillars of NZ economic success isĀ exploiting migrant labour to fuel our low wage economy (thanks to 30 years of State sponsored deunionisation) and stealing MÄori land while NEVER paying the full price of that theft back!
NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!
We get furious at even the mention of the fact that the reparations to date have been a mere pittance of the actual true value of the confiscation, not even mentioning the cost of that confiscation over generations!
We are a shallow juvenile settler country with all the Ā cultural maturity of a can of day old coke, we are a low horizon people who lash out at others who see stars. Our imaginations are glued to cow udders, rugby and cars. To attempt a debate about identity when so many micro aggression trigger snowflakes are screaming is a feat beneath our collective dignity.
Co-Governance is the EXACT model that National and ACT developed, to now decry it because post covid stress has exacerbated economic anxieties isnāt leadership, itās gutless capitulation to the lesser angels of our nature. What I find most hilarious is those screaming that MÄori are taking over canāt name 3 councillors on their own local council.
3 Waters was an attempt to serve two maters, the Waitangi Tribunal ruling into water ownership triggered by Key selling 49% of the hydro assetsand the need to find a way for Local Councils to fund water infrastructure. The way it has been manufactured into a racial smear on Nanaia Mahuta and her family DESPITE DECLARING ALL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST is proof positive that the angry and confused trump any attempt at rational debate.
What its most egregious is how these small attempts at creating basic consultation between the dominant culture and the indigenous culture they signed a Treaty with is now portrayed as a giant attack on the values of Democracy!
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 wonāt upgrade a system put under immense stress by Central Governmentās 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 canāt even debate taxing the fucking banks windfall taxes without the Right clutching their pearls and fainting on behalf of the free market.
3 Waters isnāt about MÄori taking over the fucking water, itās about Local and Central Government refusing to pay for the mass immigration policies that are enriching the property speculating middle classes.
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 MÄori ethno nationalism is gasp inducing in its dog whistling audacity.
We are too brittle a people for the challenges in front of us.
The issue of 27 000 on emergency housing wait lists, 200 000 kids in poverty and a million being spent daily to kettle beneficiaries into unsafe motels are still here begging to be solved. Our inequality, our damaging mental illness crisis, the underfunded health system and education systems Ā ā all these things are demanding attention from Labour and if the price to advance those is to cut off 3 Waters and co-governance progress, then cut them off!
A National ACT Government will be the most extreme right wing Government this country has seen since Roger Douglas, Labour can not afford to lose if those policy platforms have become welded to a toxic race debate that the Ethno-Nationalist Right are winning.
3 Waters was a instrument to solve the question of MÄori interests in water WHILE providing debt stretched Local Councils a funding mechanism to upgrade water infrastructure WHILE pushing that cost onto the commercial users who have been abusing the lax regulation and true cost of water use for fucking decades!
Instead, all we get is ‘da MÄaaaaaaaaaaaaoris are getting too much’ bargain basement fuckwittery as a debate.
Look you fucking clowns, the climate is super charging and becoming a God damned inferno! We are past the point of stopping the climate omnicide and the speed of climate change damage will force our hand whether you are fucking quibbling about the MÄori Iwiocracy or not!
The corporate interests of polluters and abusers of the current lax regulation is what is funding and driving this debate and you are all being manipulated into seeing it as a race issue when it’s a corporates trying-to-slip-out-of-paying issue using Race as the smokescreen.
I’m not saying Mahuta shouldn’t have done things at a higher standard than the Cabinet Manual states, I’m not saying that she is blameless for the entrenchment nonsense and I’m not defending the genuine issues around privatisation which I have constantly voiced!
B-U-T these are secondary issues, the main issue has been about corporate users of water avoiding that cost.
Whether those corporate polluters interests like it or not, climate change will ensure that cost is paid by us all!
We are in denial about how we used fake growth from mass immigration and intensive dairying on the water infrastructure of our nation.
We chose instead to make this a debate about race so that stagnation ensures and those fucking corporates get away with stealing and polluting the water!!!!
AGAIN!!!!!
Rapid adaptation in the face of severe global warming is our only option left and if 3 Waters gets turned around today, it simply means it will be Nationalisation of the entire water system tomorrow because the State will have no option then in the teeth of the global warming fire to finally make corporate polluters pay the true cost of the water they are polluting.
I said right at the start of 3 Waters that the Government simply should have Nationalised the entire water system under the Public Works Act and gotten on with it.
If it’s not 3 Waters today, it will be All Waters tomorrow.
You fucking clowns.
You are so easy to manipulate.
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So what this was in fact about was land confiscations, white dominant culture, white colonialism and rebalance for the damage caused to Maori by taking 90% of their land by whitey.
Well why didn’t the Prime Minister and her ministerial entourage just come out and say that in the first place? You know, just be honest and up front?
Here we were being led to think it was about water infrastructure and clean water! And some privatisation thingy no one was talking about until late 5 Waters law making stage starting boiling over because no one from Labour wanted to be honest about it.
I missed the usual back slapping celebrations in parliament when it passed into law and endless media interviews by the PM and relevant minister on this fabulous new legislation. Now why would that be?
At least you are honest about it’s real purpose. Thank you because someone had to be!
thoughtful people do not see it that way…racists would latch onto those views like leech however. Xray, I know you’re not a racist…but racists will think you are and agree with you here.
“.. share power with MÄori as promised by the Treaty”
No, power sharing was never mentioned in the ToW. Nor were Principles Partnerships or Co governance/government.
Which part of “..the Rights & Privileges of British subjects” don’t you understand ?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/12-12-2022/do-the-english-and-maori-texts-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-actually-reconcile?
Short answer is no, and there were several treaty documents.
hats not how Maori understood it…and the Crown broke their own treaty before the ink was dry…
The irony of course is that the political manipulation of covid cult by the left was on a far grander scale and dwarfs any manipulation by the right on 3 waters.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, as Q told you.
Tank posts as stupid is told…
If this 3 Waters had been presented in the 1st year of Jacinda’s reign the pixie dust would have blinded people to the truth and it would have had a free ride . Now the gloss is wearing off the lies and the hidden agendas are being exposed and the voters are bitting back
.The arrogance showed by Mahuta and Jacinda are not winning any one over and this will be one of the catalyst to their defeat at the next election
Tukoroirangi Morgan has been appointed to lead the northern Three Waters iwi body.
And he has already warned that Auckland taking more and more water from the Waikato River is not sustainable.
W0w what a proclamation from our treaty partner. The Tongariro power scheme built in.the 1970s diverted an extra 2500 million litres of water per day down the Waikato river. Auckland has a consent to take 300 millions/l/day ,20 km before it flows into the Tasman sea
3 waters is sunk in treaty quagmire if we are going to act on Maori knowledge flowing from Tuko’s mouth. And we can’t get rid of him , the new form of Maori democracy
What scares me about three waters is the cost to users. The new entities are going to take hundreds of millions to set up – buy new vehicles, layers of bureaucracy and managers with eye watering salaries. The cost of improving the water infrastructure will be in the billions. All of this will need to be borrowed.
Water users (all of us) will pay for all of this including a large return to investors and a significant dividend to iwi. The cost could be something like 100 + per week, per household. This will result in worsening inequality.
We’ve got it right with the system we’ve got now. No one owns the water and communities own their own water infrastructure. The only bit missing is a contestable fund for councils who are struggling.
Do the water entities pay dividends?
You clearly have no idea if you think the system we have now is working. The country’s water infrastructure is fucked but keep telling yourself it’s not, with your head buried in the sand. That same sand is becoming wetter by the minute. Some on this site fail to grasp the reality of our broken infrastructure and are naive enough to think local government has the funds to fix.
Well said, MHK! Neil and his like are simply and lazily acting irresponsibly and continue ‘kicking the can down the road’ – as the Nats and their allies in Councils have been doing for decades. Their answer? No problem here, just move on…. Yeah, right!!
Like this council assets manager was struggling Neil?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/130764507/corrupt-council-assets-manager-took-cash-bribes-in-exchange-for-500k-worth-of-contracts-jury-finds
Very well described Martynāclose to Column of the Yearāgiven the strands you wove together.
A propaganda victory for the right no doubt, who twisted the narrative of profiteering Farmers, Corporates and right wing local Govt. Councillors into a democracy issue. Helloā¦so many district Councils 3 Waters infrastructure are in a parlous state. In Kaitaia Councillors brick themselves every time there is a big rain event, and the water supply is regularly undrinkable, but hey until recently we have had good āol boy Natzo councillors for years ehā¦nothing to see here was John Carterās mantra.
But, that h20 has to keep flowing to the sheep shaggers and horticulturists regardless. A clue was all the Stop 3 waters signs on rural properties NOT hooked up to any 3 waters services!
Unfortunately NZ Labourās neo Blairism means they find it incredibly difficult to tackle business head on and explain things in a way that this post managed in a few paragraphs.
How many commenters above, terrified of MÄori influence are under 50 it would be interesting to know.
Under 50 and not afraid of Maori influence. Whats missing in three waters is the ability for any other group to have a say in how our water infrastructure is managed. The power given to maoridom is disproportionate and unreasonable as it stands. The entire governance structure is focused on iwi – such as the area boundaries that follow tribal boundaries. Yes mana whenua should be at the table but not be the only ones there…
And a dividend needs to be taken off the table as this will only drive inequality. Ngai Tahu for example are worth 1.7 billion and are thriving. They are also one of the main drivers of Three Waters.
As a whole we have a really good system, you turn on the tap, the water is free for all. Think for a second what happens when we start to charge businesses for water – who who pay? The consumer in the super market. Three waters is the wrong answer.
Neil, we don’t get a say in how our water is managed now. 3 waters is an absolute improvement. User pays so cough up beef and dairy farmers and other commercial polluters and ticket clippers!
How many commenters above are genuinely concerned about water affordability and ‘pseudo privatisation’. Read the details of the bill and see if that just might be a very pressing concern for many of us.
Sinic it will be you who’s coughing up. When you buy anything from tomatoes to pork, water is part of the growing process. Surely this will just drive the cost of living up…
How so Neil? I grow my own tomatoes and don’t eat pork. If the prices for meat and veg continue to skyrocket I will continue to curb my eating choices and grow more of my own produce. I’m not a price taker at the supermarket and neither should anyone else be. I vote with my wallet on such matters. Others do also. 3 waters has nothing to do with the cost of living, other than making commercial parties pay for their consumption and pollution, at the same prices as households do. They may choose to pass on costs, and we can choose to shop elsewhere and grow our own food, for example. Unviable farms and businesses will fail without sufficient custom if their price expectations are unrealistic. And the world will keep on turning.
Thank you for spelling it out – finally! There are big changes coming, globally, for the agriculture sector. Specifically around efficient use of resources – water and land – as well as waste management and environment protection. The Dutch government have recently mandated the closure of 3000 farms due to low quality and out dated farming practices.
I hear Bill Gates is working on improving farm efficiencies as well fyi
“due to low quality and out dated farming practices.”
That would be the same Netherlands that is so inefficient that they are the world’s second largest agricultural producer despite a relatively small country with a very high population density with doubled yields on the same amount of fertilizer since the 1960s? Indeed dutch farmers are so out of date, they were among those chosen to bring Afghan farmers up to date with modern practices during the US occupation.
The main rationale for closing down Dutch farms is the levels of nitrogen in and therefore preservation of, natural spaces (one waits to see is these natural spaces and closed farms will be preserved by turning them into much needed housing). Interestingly the nitrogen output going into Dutch soil has been in decline for about 30 years due to increased efficiency.
However take at face value that the nitrogen levels are far too high and must be reduced far more quickly. There are two obvious consequences.
First that agricultural production will transfer somewhere else, likely to farmers who are less efficient and countries with less strict legislation.
The second and far more serious is that we are heading into global food shortages (and further food price inflation) due to the war in Ukraine, disrupting energy supplies which worsens existing disruption of food and fertiliser production and shipping. (The high price of natural gas means most of European nitrogen based fertiliser manufacture has already stopped along with China banning some fertiliser exports). Compound this with a geopolitical reshuffle and looming debt crisis that will dwarf 2008.
In such a period of global instability, food insecurity and famine are a given. Therefore taking thousands of farms offline at this moment in a country that is highly productive is akin to Germany taking Nuclear power plants offline (and now burning more coal, more lignite while facing blackouts and industrial decline) or perhaps NZ closing refineries.
Be extremely cautious of getting rid of or disrupting old energy and food production systems till you have something to replace them with. The average person will cut down the forest for firewood before they freeze and butcher the wildlife before they starve. Is that the environmental outcome we are looking for?
Three Waters has nothing to do with irrigation schemes. At least that is what the government says. So Three Waters is not about Groundswell or farming. It is about water distributed by local authorities for drinking, household, commercial and industrial use. If farming and Groundswell are upset then it must because they fear that their irrigation schemes are next in line for co-governance. Is the government and Iwi encouraging that fear?
Perhaps they are. If they follow your advice, that is, “solving the question of Maori interests”, then all waters will be subject to a co-governance regime with licensing and fees paid for water use. Farmers won’t be be just paying for the infrastructure, they will be paying for the actual water, since it is apparent you think water (or 50% of it) should be owned by iwi. Next in line will be the hydroelectric stations. With a consequential up to 50% or more increase in electricity costs.
Is it surprising that this issue has ignited public concern as the broader implications sink in?
Well put Wayne!
“If farming and Groundswell are upset then it must because they fear that their irrigation schemes are next in line for co-governance.”
Fear…
F alse
E vidence
A ppearing
R eal
Lots of statements Wayne, little concrete evidence to support.
Excellent rant Bomber. This IS the rant of the year, well done! A rare 5 stars from me š
Farmers have riparian rights so pay nothing for water they pump from boreholes.
No Bomber I believe this is where the hate is coming from. How may operations or drugs could this pay for.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/130764915/three-waters-it-system-now-expected-to-cost-659-million?cid=app-android
Government don’t need three waters to stop underpricing of water and sales by councils, they just need to change the laws to stop water being given away or used frivolously and sold.
aka it didn’t seem to be an issue for Government to change the information law over fears councils may be threatening national security and defence with LGOIMA.
Funny enough government managed to do that, without a massive bureaucracy and change! Simple and cheap is best and 3 Waters will cost the government the elections while clearing the way for Natz to privatise! Similar to when Labour bought in student tertiary fees, Natz then kept it, and bought in student loans.
Labour have created the system to make water a profit centre, sold offshore and unaffordable just like they have for housing and education while pretending it was for their benefit.
If Labour and Greens were so worried about climate change why do they keep getting awarded fossil status at world climate events and why climate change was not demanded in the free trade agreements as they most important risk factor?
Does not seem related to water, but more related to their identity obsession.
This should be addressed via the treaty claims and science (aka structural racism in the justice system) not some sort of bogus virtue signalling, while dividing the countries social services and assets on racial lines that again are not very easy to ascertain (aka 99.9% Pakeha can identify as Maori, and the treaty was supposed to have it 50:50 – shouldn’t the assets be 50:50 based on both English settler and Maori ancestry – bear in mind land was also confiscated/given from Pakeha settlers for schools etc as well as Maori).
So, I will give an example so as not to incite the racists. Ukraine is an example: The kiwi subconsciously backs Russia. Similarly, in 1863 Maori were invaded by the British empire through force. Ukraine people and Maori understand the difference between a treaty and an invasion. I would find it difficult for anyone to justify an invasion, oops that historical amnesia.
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