3 Waters – Political Winners, Losers and Predictions

So Chippy saves Labour again with a solution that brings 3 Water back to what people understand – drains.

This is NZ now.

This new stupid is the new normal, where complex social policy that isn’t explained becomes culture war fodder and the Government is forced to dump everything, when they should have actually just explained it in the first place.

How did the Labour Coms team fuck it all up so badly?

How are so many still employed?

How did none of you notice how the Right were manipulating the vacuum and becoming a movement?

Is it because many of you block on Twitter and you live in your own small Wellington clique where reality never has to intrude you fucking morons!

I could buy you a red van, call you Pat and you’d still find a way to fuck up the delivery!

You clowns are to Coms what Today FM was to well rating talkback radio!

You couldn’t get laid in a monkey brothel wearing banana costumes!

Am I articulating my naked contempt at how you all allowed 3 Waters to become an existential race war?

Do you feel that rage?

Good. You deserve it.

Sack them Chippy.

Sack them all!

There are of course political winners and losers.

 

WINNERS:

Chippy: Chippy has saved Labour again by doing what TDB has been arguing – move 3 Waters from the co-governance hate fest and make it about what it was always about – bloody drains! He understands that the 50-50 panel is below actual Governance level of these new water entities and agrees with the Waitangi Tribunal ruling on water (triggered by John Key selling 49% of our hydro assets to fund a $400million irrigation slush fund for his Big Dairy mates). Chippy knows the Crown must negotiate Māori interests in water because that’s what the Waitangi Tribunal ruled, but he also knows from seeing the destruction caused by the Cyclones and flooding that we urgently need to bring this whole thing back to what it is actually about – DRAINS!

 

Kieran McAnulty:  His ‘Here’s the guts of it’ would be fake and shallow coming from anyone else, but Kieran is so authentic he’s almost soil – he has shone as a spokesperson on this. I’m not often impressed by politicians, but Kieran is an incredibly impressive Politician.

 

 

Feral culture war sponsors: There are two wars going on right now over water, and because this country is dumb as fuck thanks to a steady diet of intellectual mediocrity via Seven Sharp and The Project, you have no idea what they are.

The first war over Water is being conducted as a culture war. “Da Bloody Maaaaaaaris is stealing da water”! is the battle cry of these slack jowled redneck crackers. They never acknowledge that it was John Key selling 49% of the Hydro Assets that triggered Māori going to the Waitangi Tribunal and the Waitangi Tribunal agreed with Māori that they do have an interest in water and that it was the State’s responsibility to negotiate that interest with Māori. 3 Waters is the culmination of that interpretation of the Tribunals legal ruling, trying to concoct a Qanon conspiracy that the Māori elite are taking over is as stupid as it is stupid.

The culture war is where Groundswell and the new Stop Co-Governance racist redneck crackers are crucial, they are the foot soldiers who ring Talkback, write letters and refer to Cindy a lot on Social Media.

The second war over water is the economic political one. This is where the actual battle over water access, pricing and regulation is being fought. This is where Federated Farmers and Fonteera are fighting.

The dark money to fund the first fight is coming from wealthy cliques and individuals within the Agribusiness elites because they know if they win the culture war on this, they can continue polluting and making money.

There is no Māori conspiracy, just corporate interests manipulating your petty bigotry.

You don’t realise this because we have Seven Sharp and The Project keeping you dumb, and thanks to that brain meat mediocrity, the culture war grifters keep winning.

White Fragility Racism: When Elizabeth Rata coined the phrase ‘Ethno-Nationalist State‘ to describe attempts to share power with Māori 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 Rata’s claims of Ethno-Nationalist State is that she is 100% right, it’s just that she’s right in a way she doesn’t want to admit to, which is NZ is an Ethno-Nationalist State, it’s 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 Māori 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 Māori 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 backbone of the economic success story that is NZ, is in stealing Māori land and NEVER paying the full price back!

NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!

In the DNA of every white settler descendent is the engrained fear that one day the oppressed indigenous people they stole from will take their vengeance. This fear was magnified to the level of existential race war.

We should reflect upon that as a society.

 

Corporate Farmers and polluters: The pure genius of 3 Waters is the total focus on pipes and drains which amount to 1% of water ways. All the streams, lakes, rivers that are heavily polluted aren’t really part of this.

This won’t make those water ways safer.

We have 10million cows in this country.

Each cow shits the same as 14 humans.

That’s 140million humans pissing and shitting into every water way we have throughout NZ.

3 Waters focuses only on the existing infrastructure of water in this country, that does jack shit to stop the agricultural industry from polluting everything else.

We have been tricked into arguments over water infrastructure ownership without dealing with the current waste being pumped into our waterways.

Which is the way the corporate agricultural industry wants it because they don’t want to be held responsible for 45% of our rivers being too polluted to swim in.

 

Actual neoliberal Co-Governance: It’s not co-governance with Māori you should fear you silly sleepy hobbits! It’s the co-governance of our Government with corporate lobbyists. It’s the co-governance with the polluters, the co-governance of the Banks, the co-governance of the Washington Consensus, the co-governance with the property speculators, the co-governance with the fishing industry, the trucking industry, the Supermarket duopoly,  the forestry industry and those god awful corporate retirement caged camps!

How is a 50-50 panel that serves under actual board governance level on future decisions on water infrastructure the co-governance that is suddenly an existential threat to NZ yet the actual co-governance with corporate lobbyists, polluters, Banks, the Washington Consensus, property speculators, fishing, trucking, the Supermarket duopoly, forestry and those god awful corporate retirement caged camps is sweet as fuck?

Why is it only an infringement on our Democracy when the person is a different skin colour?

Maybe some of you could all reflect upon that a bit?

 

Wellington Council: The Real winner in all of this is of course fucking Wellington. You can’t do anything in NZ Politics without giving Wellington its protection racket money. The Council who will benefit most from this solution is of course Wellington whose feckless wank never upgraded the water infrastructure, preferring to just spend huge amounts on remedial temporary work when pipe ruptures occur. Biding their time in the safe knowledge central Government will have to solve the problem for them at some point because they are the Capital. This takes that huge cost off the shoulders of every precious soul in Wellington.

I know. Know. I know.

I hate it too.

 

LOSERS:

Iwi elites: Iwi had a whole bunch of fish hooks added into the guts of the legislation that give them veto powers in the The Te Mana o Te Wai statements. These statements were hidden deep in the guts of the legislation. Those veto powers will be watered down.

 

China’s interest in our water: In 2017, Infrastructure NZ led a delegation of 33 senior New Zealand public and private representatives to the UK. The purpose of the all expenses paid delegation was to investigate Scotland’s infrastructure innovations since devolution, especially their water system which ended up being the structural basis for 3 Waters.

Criticism of the financial structure of 3 Waters raises serious questions about the ease with which a failing water entity could be privatized.

Under the current 3 Waters legislation, the new water entities cannot be ‘bailed’ out by their council ‘owners’, and the entities are also empowered to sell assets if they can retain the capacity to exercise their duties functions and powers. The ‘owners’ can’t prevent this, nor can the Regional Representative Group or the appointment board.

Infrastructure NZ comprises of the China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Bank of China. These are the domestic pimps for China’s Belt and Road project so why are we allowing Chinese interests to influence our infrastructure?

The Pacific is the new friction point between America and China, NZ would be naive to believe we aren’t on the chessboard and only raises more questions about the need for neutrality.

 

Iwi Elites trying to sell water to China: The romanticisation of Māori Capitalism is that it is less venal than Pakeha Capitalism, but that romanticism is a double edged sword, because if Māori are using The Te Mana o Te Wai statements, (these are buried buried deep within the Water Services Entities Bill), they gain a veto power no one else has, and with that veto power they could choose to not work with NZ, they could work with Chinese water interests and that would generate a backlash explosion of anger far greater than ‘da Māoris is stealing da water’.

The question politically is would any Iwi attempt to maximise the new powers they’ve gained under 3 Waters to cut deals with Chinese water interests instead of local interests because that would be seen by many Kiwis as treason.

Interestingly the preamble of 3 Waters is all about the obligation of the State to protect Iwi expressing their interest in water – which includes their ‘right’ to sell their interests to who they want.

If New Zealanders saw Iwi using 3 Waters to cut deals with Chinese Business interests, all hell is going to break loose politically.

This money generated by trade with China comes with so many fish hooks there’s more hook than fish.

 

Water Privatisation: The changes in the way the new 10 entities will be able to generate debt makes it more difficult for external interests to buy that debt, but this is a crucial area of the legislation we are still not clear about. I don’t understand why we simply aren’t buying this from our own ACC and Super funds to ensure the debt can never be used to privatise it!

 

Greens + Nanaia: They saw the dangers of the debt structure and knew it could lead to privatisation, but because they were so late to understanding the legislation, they hastily threw up this 60% entrenchment solution in the hope of preventing water privatisation without telling us all that was what had spooked them because they were ramming it through Parliament under urgency while claiming the haste wouldn’t cause problems. Nanaia, despite declaring all conflicts of interest, was subject to a tsunami of racist hate, but she didn’t help her cause by blaming Cabinet for not reading the final changes that she didn’t warn them about. Now the kindest interpretation is Nanaia didn’t read it herself and didn’t know, or she did read it and simply assumed everyone else read it. The unkindest interpretation is she knew exactly what fishhooks had been put into the guts of the legislation and had no intention of highlighting this to her Cabinet colleagues. Either way, she has been dropped right out of the Cabinet rankings.

 

National: Luxon can’t be as racist as National’s ageing rump voter base want, and they will walk over to ACT whose burning cross of race relations policy glows brightly across the horizon of far right political polarisation.

 

NZ First: Winnie won’t be able to blow his canine trumpet as loudly on 3 Waters anymore which will rob him of most of the momentum he needs to cross 5%.

 

 

PREDICTIONS:

We are fucked.

We are a shallow juvenile settler country with all the  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 isn’t leadership, it’s gutless capitulation to the lesser angels of our nature. What I find most hilarious is those screaming that Māori are taking over can’t name 3 councillors on their own local council.

3 Waters was an attempt to serve two masters, the Waitangi Tribunal ruling into water ownership triggered by Key selling 49% of the hydro assets and 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 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.

That’s what Labour has attempted to do but the way it has been maligned and miscast as Māoris stealing da water is utterly misreading what this is all about.

This hasn’t been helped by a Government (Willie Jackson aside) who seem too scared to actually try and explain how this will work to the public so that can be brought along with this reform rather than seeing it as existential threat to them (despite the vast majority of those complaining unable to even name a local councillor, let alone their Māori representative).

Co-Governance is our strength in NZ, not a betrayal of Democracy.

Unfortunately, Labour were too cowardly to make this argument when 3 Waters was first released and it’s ended up as an existential race war.

There are still issues with 3 Waters, the funding and debt side of this has yet to be reviewed, because water privatisation would be an abomination, especially if the very same Chinese Business interests that led the NZ delegation to Scotland in the first place also involve themselves in the borrowing of the debt, but pretending those small issues are the same as Apartheid, separatism or racism mocks the true harm of those words.

We are all alone together on these lonely Isles on the far side of the Great Southern Ocean, and yet all we manage to do is squabble and defend exploitative Capitalist systems that rob us while empowering Plutocrats, Duopolies and Oligopolies.

National and ACT are being disingenuous in the extreme when they whip up the worst angels of our nature over co-governance because once you coax that anger out, you can’t ever stuff it back into the bottle.

After 183 years, we have to start respecting each other and working together because no one else is going to help us!

Co-governance with Māori isn’t our problem, it’s the co-governance with the Banks, the Billionaires and the property speculators that is fucking up our country!

 

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