How Chippy saves 3 Waters & Co-Governance

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.

Chippy’s challenge is to create a new narrative, away from co-governance to co-operation and he could do that with the right speech at Waitangi.

3 Waters is more tricky.

Ultimately 3 Waters is all about drains!

We lose 20% of all water from the source to your tap, that’s a drainage issue!

How the Christ did drains become an existential race war?

Chippy needs to refocus 3 Waters on drains and promote more work to be done by small drain layer companies by ensuring 15% of drain supplies go to independent/small Drain companies.

Currently the large players choke off the small companies and the work doesn’t get done!

Pushing this line takes the political heat out of the issue.

Māori have been horrifically impacted by our brutally passive racism. Māori are 380% more likely to be convicted of a crime and 200% more likely to die from heart disease and suicide. Māori are paid 18% less and 34% leave school without a qualification. Māori die earlier and suffer more. Māori had 95% of their land taken from them in less than a century and were almost wiped out at the turn of the 1900s.

Couple all of that with a pittance in terms of reparations for stolen land, and to have that legacy defined by these cracker Qanon Rednecks at Stop Co-Governance as ‘privilege’ is such ignorance.

I turned 49 years old last week, and not once in my life have I been negatively impacted as a pakeha by any programme or policy aimed at helping Māori.

I laugh at people who scream about Māori representation on their local Council yet can’t name 3 of their own councillors.

I’m not saying there aren’t problems with Co-Governance or 3 Waters, 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.

After 184 years, we have to start respecting each other and working together because no one else is going to help us.

Part of this is on Labour, they never explained what co-governance was and wan’t! Chippy must now articulate what co-governance is and I believe move it towards co-operation instead.

If Labour can’t tell Kiwis what co-governance is and isn’t, then the Right will continue to whip up claims of a secret Māori coup to take over NZ.

National and ACT however 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.

We need leadership from Chippy or else the debate will remain cursed by the reactionary right.

 

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