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  1. I felt 3 Waters sounded wrong when it was first introduced then 60 out of 67 councils including Labour led councils like Chch and Auckland said it was bad news so I feel my thoughts were correct. It seems to be a underhanded way of gaining control of a vital asset and using it as a gift to Maori to get their vote and expand the buracrats that control the asset who owe their job to Labour being in control.
    I have travelled the country enough to know there are problem areas with water quality but this is no excuse to take all assets from both good and bad just because they can.
    I think at this point the election next year will be won or lost on 3 Waters ,crime , health especially mental health and housing wether buying or renting which feeds into poverty

    1. What’s all this crap about taking assets. It would be a bit hard to move catchment areas, reservoirs, sewerage ponds and whatever else is associated with 3 Waters. Get a life. Under Council ownership there are numerous ticket-clippers chronic underfunding incompetence and God knows what other problems. Do we need the plague under the current disjointed system before Government takes action to resolve a shitfest of problems that will predictably lead to privatisation, or worse still, PPPs without some sort of change.

      1. Chch council may not be perfect but at least they are contactable which is more than Wellington bureaucrats are. Water and health are both being taken from local control and given to the same group of people who are running kiwibuild.

  2. I read an interesting article in the Australian. To summarise, it says:

    Labour hasnt been open and honest about its co governance intentions and the implication of Maori placing a levy on water and hence rednecks havent been honest about their true concerns with 3 Waters. Sounds about right to me.

    My issues with 3 Waters: – Cant see anyway that it is efficient and I dont trust this govt to have come up with a robust cost effective solution just because —- housing, hospitals, infrastructure – yeah. Many other alternatives not explored, Scottish comparator was similar on population grounds but distribution and network very different. Also havent considered source water in their calculations.

    As a ratepayer who is in a well run council, we are looking at a $2K a year rise. And Maori may have the right to take a levy (tax free at that) just because – yeah/nah to any group who is going to add to the cost.

    Co governance is incredibly undemocratic. It is not based on either suffrage or equal suffrage.

    We need more local governance and more representative democracy not less. Also not at all opposed to co governance but how about 50/50 co-governance of locally elected people including Maori. That way we can vote them in or out and the local area will decide performance particularly if they are not allowed to run on party tickets. (Hold up, isnt that what we have now except its 100% local people!)

    Also, you will likely have noticed that the NZ people were never consulted on this? Maori were extensively but what the rest of us got was advertising and disinformation via a captured media. Stuff’s summer series every week, sometimes 3 times a week on Knackered water networks, stagnant Lake Ellesmore or munted braided rivers. All done to counter the Stop 3 Waters campaign and support our NZ on Air aims. What about the X number of thousand people getting water borne illnesses each year? Utter disinformation.

    Finally the biggest threat of all. The upcoming local government review.

    Many district councils will have a third of their function stripped away from them and lose economies of scale so other services will necessarily get more expensive, some small ones may not be able to function. Is this good? Is this fair?

    But that’s why the govt plans a review of local government following on from 3 Waters? Suddenly 1/2 the District Councils will be gone and amalgamated resulting in you guessed it – less representative democracy. How about in 3 or 4 years, we then restructure them into 4 super entities called Taumata? Arowai and we can hand all local government over to unelected boards that are 50% co governed.

    We are a multi cultural country founded on the principles of equal suffrage. Why is this being made about race? Why not call a spade a spade and call this constitutional change by stealth. Democracy is so 20th Century….

    And even worse, the vast majority of poor and middle income brown people will end up paying a lot more in rent and rates. (And most other NZers as well). The property investors will tack $50 a week on to rents to cover this cost.

    Forget race, think class and how we build and maintain robust communities for all New Zealanders.

    We should be beefing up local services and

  3. Unkind to banjos. But perhaps our election will be compared to the Duelling Banjos playoff and the election will provide Deliverance.

  4. If everyone greeted the morning to the sound of a banjo the world would be a happier place.

  5. What are the criteria for success with 3 Waters?

    How will we know how well it’s performing?

  6. Why ban exporting bottled water. Its nothing volume wise.. driven down the West Coast lately and see how much fresh water flows into the sea each day!

  7. People ignored (and Cancelled) by the political media groups will express them selves in different ways.
    Frustrated they won’t always use the system thats blanking them.
    It’s interesting how ground swell was reported protesting SNAs, as compared to Maori protesting the same thing.
    Maori protests were reported, matter of fact which is good.With non of the smear placed on the banjo playing ground swill.
    The farm management Overseer system, clearly had major proplems, but no one was interested.
    Don’t think health workers are happy either, basically the working class are going off,the government that calls itself Labour.
    Who needs them, the P.MC is doing fine.And there maxist friends from university .

  8. “They didn’t even bother reading the bloody legislation…” to be fair Bomber most of the MPs voting on this won’t have read it either

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