China stealing our water MUST STOP NOW and why it’s NZ First’s fault
Bottling expansion could see 9 billion litres of pristine Christchurch water sold overseas
Cloud Ocean Water has bought land for a second bottling plant across the road from a factory it is developing on the site of a former wool scour.
The China-owned company could be eyeing up billions more litres of water from beneath Christchurch to bottle and sell overseas as part of a major expansion of its operations in Belfast.
At least eight bores with permission to take drinking water are on or next to the new site.
If it gains consent to use them, it could have access to another 7.5 billion litres of the city’s water – five times what it can already take – for export each year.
Here is the problem.
The very second China starts seeing NZ as it’s water reservoir, we are in deep danger. Currently we are just a farm to them, they have plenty of places that provide them food, water though? There are few places that can provide clean pure water.
If China sees us as their well, we will quickly become strategically important to them and be seen as the Tibet of the South Pacific.
We can not allow them to see us as a source of water, especially in a global warming world.
China already has enormous control over our economy and our political system. The National Party is little more than a business front for China…
…not to mention an active Chinese Spy in their caucus…
…the leading academic who has outed much of this influence is now having to beg the Prime Minister for protection…
‘I’m being watched’: Anne-Marie Brady, the China critic living in fear of Beijing
New Zealand academic says Chinese intimidation tactics she has studied are now being used against her
…so China already has enormous influence over us and once they see us as a source for free water we are screwed.
This debate can’t be had on the left because the woke activist base scream ‘racism’ and ‘xenophobia’ every time Chinese influence over our economic and political systems is mentioned, so it will need to be NZ First who leads the charge here.
The problem is NZ First are part of the problem.
Because we refuse to put a price on water, China can continue to steal it for free. We refuse to put a price on water because that would then mean a property right that was given up for the public good by Māori would then have price attached to it and Māori would be in their rights to demand payment for that.
NZ First are dead set against giving Māori any property rights over water and because they are also supported by the provinces who rely on taking water for free, they don’t want to anger their own voting base.
The public domestic use of water should continue to be free, commercial domestic use for water towards a finished product (food, wine, etc) should have fixed price on it with a dividend going to Māori and exporting water should be banned altogether.
That is the solution we need to obtain, NZ First is the problem to overcome.
FOLLOW THE MONEY, just the usual trait of many NZers, as I sadly observe, certainly the more pro capitalism ones.
No wonder we have so many former politicians and also business leaders get cosy with Mainland Chinese banks, businesses, corporations, and end up in positions where they compromise the interests of most NZers to levels that get close to treason.
This seems like nonsense to me. The NZ Government could trivially regulate water as it sees fit (after all, just about everything else is regulated without general (lat alone Maori) consultation so I don’t see it as a sticking point). Exploitative whoring water out for foreign interests could be halted as quickly as a Thanos snap. e.g. just create legislation that if said water doesn’t directly contribute toward the wealth of NZ citizens generally, then its extraction is a hard no. Done and dusted.
re …”doesn’t directly contribute toward the wealth of NZ citizens generally’
….”wealth” defined as environmental health
Environmental health would obviously be a key consideration (in fact, you’d hope that is case already!).
Of all the political parties NZF stood on a platform of NO sales of water overseas!
…so I fail to understand how it can be solely NZF’s fault that water under Christchurch is being sold off
…this Coalition Labour , NZF , Green Government needs to get some balls and change the law and ECAN fast!…so that NO NZ water can be sold overseas.
…otherwise Christchurch will sink into the hole left by the drained aquifers…as it has been sinking since the earthquakes
…(if dairy drainage of the aquifers under Christchurch and the Waimakariri hinterland did not not cause the earthquakes in the first place!)
..and the pristine Christchurch aquifer water runs the danger of seawater drainage and back contamination….this is how cities die
PUMPED DRY: The Global Crisis of Vanishing Groundwater
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjsThobgq7Q&feature=youtu.be
I fail to see how privatising water to the control of Maori Corporations will stop the sale of New Zealand water….these corporations may also sell water to the Chinese as they have considered also doing deals over pounamu (greenstone)…another taonga.
Also why are some on the Christchurch City Council also considering selling off water under Christchurch as bottled water overseas?
It’s not difficult – impose the cost on exporting water. The recycling cost of the PET bottles should also be recovered. Doesn’t hit small irrigators.
But it’s gone a bit far in some communities already – some public water supplies have become unsafe to drink. No commercial water right can be permitted to trump safe domestic supply.
This can easily be resolved by legislation… NZ Government is more than capable of protecting its interests eg., legislated protection of its poison industry
Canterbury’s water allocation zones are almost without exception over allocated or fully allocated. Other parts of NZ are approaching the same scenario so …why are we not discussing the fact that we continue to grow our population and our economy without either the water to support that growth or the regulations to allocate water where its needed. Time to connect the dots Minister Parker – quickly.
Refusing to put a price on water and the bottling of our water are two separate issues (which perhaps means we can’t blame NZF). We can and should ban bottling (for export or completely) and THEN choose whether or not to put a price on water. Two things are certain: firstly, if we put a price on water it will not stop the bottlers (it will in fact make it easier for them to acquire consents to take water) and; secondly, if we don’t stop the bottlers we will very quickly lose our last reserves of clean drinking water. A royalty is not the solution to the bottling problem.